'Myself and a fellow by the name of Crenshaw gathered four good horses

and started for Georgia. We got in company with a young South

Carolinian just before we got to Cumberland Mountain, and Crenshaw soon

knew all about his business. He had been to Tennessee to buy a drove of

hogs, but when he got there pork was dearer than he calculated, and he

declined purchasing. We concluded he was a prize. Crenshaw winked at

me; I understood his idea. Crenshaw had traveled the road before, but I

never had; we had traveled several miles on the mountain, when he passed

near a great precipice; just before we passed it Crenshaw asked me for

my whip, which had a pound of lead in the butt; I handed it to him, and

he rode up by the side of the South Carolinian, and gave him a blow on

the side of the head and tumbled him from his horse; we lit from our

horses and fingered his pockets; we got twelve hundred and sixty-two

dollars. Crenshaw said he knew a place to hide him, and he gathered him

under his arms, and I by his feet, and conveyed him to a deep crevice in

the brow of the precipice, and tumbled him into it, and he went out of

sight; we then tumbled in his saddle, and took his horse with us, which

was worth two hundred dollars.

'We were detained a few days, and during that time our friend went to a

little village in the neighborhood and saw the negro advertised (a negro

in our possession), and a description of the two men of whom he had been

purchased, and giving his suspicions of the men. It was rather squally

times, but any port in a storm: we took the negro that night on the bank

of a creek which runs by the farm of our friend, and Crenshaw shot him

through the head. We took out his entrails and sunk him in the creek.

'He had sold the other negro the third time on Arkansaw River for

upwards of five hundred dollars; and then stole him and delivered him

into the hand of his friend, who conducted him to a swamp, and veiled

the tragic scene, and got the last gleanings and sacred pledge of

secrecy; as a game of that kind will not do unless it ends in a mystery

to all but the fraternity. He sold the negro, first and last, for nearly

two thousand dollars, and then put him for ever out of the reach of all

pursuers; and they can never graze him unless they can find the negro;

and that they cannot do, for his carcass has fed many a tortoise and

catfish before this time, and the frogs have sung this many a long day

to the silent repose of his skeleton.'

We were approaching Memphis, in front of which city, and witnessed by

its people, was fought the most famous of the river battles of the Civil

War. Two men whom I had served under, in my river days, took part in

that fight: Mr. Bixby, head pilot of the Union fleet, and Montgomery,

Commodore of the Confederate fleet. Both saw a great deal of active

service during the war, and achieved high reputations for pluck and

capacity.

As we neared Memphis, we began to cast about for an excuse to stay with

the 'Gold Dust' to the end of her course--Vicksburg. We were so

pleasantly situated, that we did not wish to make a change. I had an

errand of considerable importance to do at Napoleon, Arkansas, but

perhaps I could manage it without quitting the 'Gold Dust.' I said as

much; so we decided to stick to present quarters.

The boat was to tarry at Memphis till ten the next morning. It is a

beautiful city, nobly situated on a commanding bluff overlooking the

river. The streets are straight and spacious, though not paved in a way

to incite distempered admiration. No, the admiration must be reserved

for the town's sewerage system, which is called perfect; a recent

reform, however, for it was just the other way, up to a few years ago--a

reform resulting from the lesson taught by a desolating visitation of

the yellow-fever. In those awful days the people were swept off by

hundreds, by thousands; and so great was the reduction caused by flight

and by death together, that the population was diminished three-fourths,

and so remained for a time. Business stood nearly still, and the streets

bore an empty Sunday aspect.

Here is a picture of Memphis, at that disastrous time, drawn by a German

tourist who seems to have been an eye-witness of the scenes which he

describes. It is from Chapter VII, of his book, just published, in

Leipzig, 'Mississippi-Fahrten, von Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg.'--

'In August the yellow-fever had reached its extremest height. Daily,

hundreds fell a sacrifice to the terrible epidemic. The city was become

a mighty graveyard, two-thirds of the population had deserted the place,

and only the poor, the aged and the sick, remained behind, a sure prey

for the insidious enemy. The houses were closed: little lamps burned in

front of many--a sign that here death had entered. Often, several lay

dead in a single house; from the windows hung black crape. The stores

were shut up, for their owners were gone away or dead.

'Fearful evil! In the briefest space it struck down and swept away even

the most vigorous victim. A slight indisposition, then an hour of

fever, then the hideous delirium, then--the Yellow Death! On the street

corners, and in the squares, lay sick men, suddenly overtaken by the

disease; and even corpses, distorted and rigid. Food failed. Meat

spoiled in a few hours in the fetid and pestiferous air, and turned

black.

'Fearful clamors issue from many houses; then after a season they cease,

and all is still: noble, self-sacrificing men come with the coffin,

nail it up, and carry it away, to the graveyard. In the night stillness

reigns. Only the physicians and the hearses hurry through the streets;

and out of the distance, at intervals, comes the muffled thunder of the

railway train, which with the speed of the wind, and as if hunted by

furies, flies by the pest-ridden city without halting.'

But there is life enough there now. The population exceeds forty

thousand and is augmenting, and trade is in a flourishing condition. We

drove about the city; visited the park and the sociable horde of

squirrels there; saw the fine residences, rose-clad and in other ways

enticing to the eye; and got a good breakfast at the hotel.

A thriving place is the Good Samaritan City of the Mississippi: has a

great wholesale jobbing trade; foundries, machine shops; and

manufactories of wagons, carriages, and cotton-seed oil; and is shortly

to have cotton mills and elevators.

Her cotton receipts reached five hundred thousand bales last year--an

increase of sixty thousand over the year before. Out from her healthy

commercial heart issue five trunk lines of railway; and a sixth is being

added.

This is a very different Memphis from the one which the vanished and

unremembered procession of foreign tourists used to put into their books

long time ago. In the days of the now forgotten but once renowned and

vigorously hated Mrs. Trollope, Memphis seems to have consisted mainly

of one long street of log-houses, with some outlying cabins sprinkled

around rearward toward the woods; and now and then a pig, and no end of

mud. That was fifty-five years ago. She stopped at the hotel. Plainly

it was not the one which gave us our breakfast. She says--

'The table was laid for fifty persons, and was nearly full. They ate in

perfect silence, and with such astonishing rapidity that their dinner

was over literally before ours was begun; the only sounds heard were

those produced by the knives and forks, with the unceasing chorus of

coughing, ETC.'

'Coughing, etc.' The 'etc.' stands for an unpleasant word there, a

word which she does not always charitably cover up, but sometimes

prints. You will find it in the following description of a steamboat

dinner which she ate in company with a lot of aristocratic planters;

wealthy, well-born, ignorant swells they were, tinselled with the usual

harmless military and judicial titles of that old day of cheap shams and

windy pretense--

'The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table; the voracious

rapidity with which the viands were seized and devoured; the strange

uncouth phrases and pronunciation; the loathsome spitting, from the

contamination of which it was absolutely impossible to protect our

dresses; the frightful manner of feeding with their knives, till the

whole blade seemed to enter into the mouth; and the still more frightful

manner of cleaning the teeth afterward with a pocket knife, soon forced

us to feel that we were not surrounded by the generals, colonels, and

majors of the old world; and that the dinner hour was to be anything

rather than an hour of enjoyment.'

Chapter 30 Sketches by the Way

IT was a big river, below Memphis; banks brimming full, everywhere, and

very frequently more than full, the waters pouring out over the land,

flooding the woods and fields for miles into the interior; and in

places, to a depth of fifteen feet; signs, all about, of men's hard work

gone to ruin, and all to be done over again, with straitened means and a

weakened courage. A melancholy picture, and a continuous one;--hundreds

of miles of it. Sometimes the beacon lights stood in water three feet

deep, in the edge of dense forests which extended for miles without

farm, wood-yard, clearing, or break of any kind; which meant that the

keeper of the light must come in a skiff a great distance to discharge

his trust,--and often in desperate weather. Yet I was told that the work

is faithfully performed, in all weathers; and not always by men,

sometimes by women, if the man is sick or absent. The Government

furnishes oil, and pays ten or fifteen dollars a month for the lighting

and tending. A Government boat distributes oil and pays wages once a

month.

The Ship Island region was as woodsy and tenantless as ever. The island

has ceased to be an island; has joined itself compactly to the main

shore, and wagons travel, now, where the steamboats used to navigate.

No signs left of the wreck of the 'Pennsylvania.' Some farmer will turn

up her bones with his plow one day, no doubt, and be surprised.

We were getting down now into the migrating negro region. These poor

people could never travel when they were slaves; so they make up for the

privation now. They stay on a plantation till the desire to travel

seizes them; then they pack up, hail a steamboat, and clear out. Not

for any particular place; no, nearly any place will answer; they only

want to be moving. The amount of money on hand will answer the rest of

the conundrum for them. If it will take them fifty miles, very well; let

it be fifty. If not, a shorter flight will do.

During a couple of days, we frequently answered these hails. Sometimes

there was a group of high-water-stained, tumble-down cabins, populous

with colored folk, and no whites visible; with grassless patches of dry

ground here and there; a few felled trees, with skeleton cattle, mules,

and horses, eating the leaves and gnawing the bark--no other food for

them in the flood-wasted land. Sometimes there was a single lonely

landing-cabin; near it the colored family that had hailed us; little and

big, old and young, roosting on the scant pile of household goods; these

consisting of a rusty gun, some bed-ticks, chests, tinware, stools, a

crippled looking-glass, a venerable arm-chair, and six or eight base-

born and spiritless yellow curs, attached to the family by strings. They

must have their dogs; can't go without their dogs. Yet the dogs are

never willing; they always object; so, one after another, in ridiculous

procession, they are dragged aboard; all four feet braced and sliding

along the stage, head likely to be pulled off; but the tugger marching

determinedly forward, bending to his work, with the rope over his

shoulder for better purchase. Sometimes a child is forgotten and left on

the bank; but never a dog.

The usual river-gossip going on in the pilot-house. Island No. 63--an

island with a lovely 'chute,' or passage, behind it in the former times.

They said Jesse Jamieson, in the 'Skylark,' had a visiting pilot with

him one trip--a poor old broken-down, superannuated fellow--left him at

the wheel, at the foot of 63, to run off the watch. The ancient mariner

went up through the chute, and down the river outside; and up the chute

and down the river again; and yet again and again; and handed the boat

over to the relieving pilot, at the end of three hours of honest

endeavor, at the same old foot of the island where he had originally

taken the wheel! A darkey on shore who had observed the boat go by,

about thirteen times, said, 'clar to gracious, I wouldn't be s'prised if

dey's a whole line o' dem Sk'ylarks!'

Anecdote illustrative of influence of reputation in the changing of

opinion. The 'Eclipse' was renowned for her swiftness. One day she

passed along; an old darkey on shore, absorbed in his own matters, did

not notice what steamer it was. Presently someone asked--

'Any boat gone up?'

'Yes, sah.'

'Was she going fast?'

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

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

'No, sah.'

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

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

SPARKLIN'!'

Piece of history illustrative of the violent style of some of the people

down along here, During the early weeks of high water, A's fence rails

washed down on B's ground, and B's rails washed up in the eddy and

landed on A's ground. A said, 'Let the thing remain so; I will use your

rails, and you use mine.' But B objected--wouldn't have it so. One

day, A came down on B's ground to get his rails. B said, 'I'll kill

you!' and proceeded for him with his revolver. A said, 'I'm not armed.'

So B, who wished to do only what was right, threw down his revolver;

then pulled a knife, and cut A's throat all around, but gave his

principal attention to the front, and so failed to sever the jugular.

Struggling around, A managed to get his hands on the discarded revolver,

and shot B dead with it--and recovered from his own injuries.

Further gossip;--after which, everybody went below to get afternoon

coffee, and left me at the wheel, alone, Something presently reminded me

of our last hour in St. Louis, part of which I spent on this boat's

hurricane deck, aft. I was joined there by a stranger, who dropped into

conversation with me--a brisk young fellow, who said he was born in a

town in the interior of Wisconsin, and had never seen a steamboat until

a week before. Also said that on the way down from La Crosse he had

inspected and examined his boat so diligently and with such passionate

interest that he had mastered the whole thing from stem to rudder-blade.

Asked me where I was from. I answered, New England. 'Oh, a Yank!' said

he; and went chatting straight along, without waiting for assent or

denial. He immediately proposed to take me all over the boat and tell me

the names of her different parts, and teach me their uses. Before I

could enter protest or excuse, he was already rattling glibly away at

his benevolent work; and when I perceived that he was misnaming the

things, and inhospitably amusing himself at the expense of an innocent

stranger from a far country, I held my peace, and let him have his way.

He gave me a world of misinformation; and the further he went, the wider

his imagination expanded, and the more he enjoyed his cruel work of

deceit. Sometimes, after palming off a particularly fantastic and

outrageous lie upon me, he was so 'full of laugh' that he had to step

aside for a minute, upon one pretext or another, to keep me from

suspecting. I staid faithfully by him until his comedy was finished.

Then he remarked that he had undertaken to 'learn' me all about a

steamboat, and had done it; but that if he had overlooked anything, just

ask him and he would supply the lack. 'Anything about this boat that you

don't know the name of or the purpose of, you come to me and I'll tell

you.' I said I would, and took my departure; disappeared, and approached

him from another quarter, whence he could not see me. There he sat, all

alone, doubling himself up and writhing this way and that, in the throes

of unappeasable laughter. He must have made himself sick; for he was not

publicly visible afterward for several days. Meantime, the episode

dropped out of my mind.

The thing that reminded me of it now, when I was alone at the wheel, was

the spectacle of this young fellow standing in the pilot-house door,

with the knob in his hand, silently and severely inspecting me. I don't

know when I have seen anybody look so injured as he did. He did not say

anything--simply stood there and looked; reproachfully looked and

pondered. Finally he shut the door, and started away; halted on the

texas a minute; came slowly back and stood in the door again, with that

grieved look in his face; gazed upon me awhile in meek rebuke, then

said--

'You let me learn you all about a steamboat, didn't you?'

'Yes,' I confessed.

'Yes, you did--DIDN'T you?'

'Yes.'

'You are the feller that--that--'

Language failed. Pause--impotent struggle for further words--then he

gave it up, choked out a deep, strong oath, and departed for good.

Afterward I saw him several times below during the trip; but he was

cold--would not look at me. Idiot, if he had not been in such a sweat

to play his witless practical joke upon me, in the beginning, I would

have persuaded his thoughts into some other direction, and saved him

from committing that wanton and silly impoliteness.

I had myself called with the four o'clock watch, mornings, for one

cannot see too many summer sunrises on the Mississippi. They are

enchanting. First, there is the eloquence of silence; for a deep hush

broods everywhere. Next, there is the haunting sense of loneliness,

isolation, remoteness from the worry and bustle of the world. The dawn

creeps in stealthily; the solid walls of black forest soften to gray,

and vast stretches of the river open up and reveal themselves; the water

is glass-smooth, gives off spectral little wreaths of white mist, there

is not the faintest breath of wind, nor stir of leaf; the tranquillity

is profound and infinitely satisfying. Then a bird pipes up, another

follows, and soon the pipings develop into a jubilant riot of music.

You see none of the birds; you simply move through an atmosphere of song

which seems to sing itself. When the light has become a little

stronger, you have one of the fairest and softest pictures imaginable.

You have the intense green of the massed and crowded foliage near by;

you see it paling shade by shade in front of you; upon the next

projecting cape, a mile off or more, the tint has lightened to the

tender young green of spring; the cape beyond that one has almost lost

color, and the furthest one, miles away under the horizon, sleeps upon

the water a mere dim vapor, and hardly separable from the sky above it

and about it. And all this stretch of river is a mirror, and you have

the shadowy reflections of the leafage and the curving shores and the

receding capes pictured in it. Well, that is all beautiful; soft and

rich and beautiful; and when the sun gets well up, and distributes a

pink flush here and a powder of gold yonder and a purple haze where it

will yield the best effect, you grant that you have seen something that

is worth remembering.

We had the Kentucky Bend country in the early morning--scene of a

strange and tragic accident in the old times, Captain Poe had a small

stern-wheel boat, for years the home of himself and his wife. One night

the boat struck a snag in the head of Kentucky Bend, and sank with

astonishing suddenness; water already well above the cabin floor when

the captain got aft. So he cut into his wife's state-room from above

with an ax; she was asleep in the upper berth, the roof a flimsier one

than was supposed; the first blow crashed down through the rotten boards

and clove her skull.

This bend is all filled up now--result of a cut-off; and the same agent

has taken the great and once much-frequented Walnut Bend, and set it

away back in a solitude far from the accustomed track of passing

steamers.

Helena we visited, and also a town I had not heard of before, it being

of recent birth--Arkansas City. It was born of a railway; the Little

Rock, Mississippi River and Texas Railroad touches the river there. We

asked a passenger who belonged there what sort of a place it was.

'Well,' said he, after considering, and with the air of one who wishes

to take time and be accurate, 'It's a hell of a place.' A description

which was photographic for exactness. There were several rows and

clusters of shabby frame-houses, and a supply of mud sufficient to

insure the town against a famine in that article for a hundred years;

for the overflow had but lately subsided. There were stagnant ponds in

the streets, here and there, and a dozen rude scows were scattered

about, lying aground wherever they happened to have been when the waters

drained off and people could do their visiting and shopping on foot once

more. Still, it is a thriving place, with a rich country behind it, an

elevator in front of it, and also a fine big mill for the manufacture of

cotton-seed oil. I had never seen this kind of a mill before.

Cotton-seed was comparatively valueless in my time; but it is worth $12

or $13 a ton now, and none of it is thrown away. The oil made from it is

colorless, tasteless, and almost if not entirely odorless. It is

claimed that it can, by proper manipulation, be made to resemble and

perform the office of any and all oils, and be produced at a cheaper

rate than the cheapest of the originals. Sagacious people shipped it to

Italy, doctored it, labeled it, and brought it back as olive oil. This

trade grew to be so formidable that Italy was obliged to put a

prohibitory impost upon it to keep it from working serious injury to her

oil industry.

Helena occupies one of the prettiest situations on the Mississippi. Her

perch is the last, the southernmost group of hills which one sees on

that side of the river. In its normal condition it is a pretty town;

but the flood (or possibly the seepage) had lately been ravaging it;

whole streets of houses had been invaded by the muddy water, and the

outsides of the buildings were still belted with a broad stain extending

upwards from the foundations. Stranded and discarded scows lay all

about; plank sidewalks on stilts four feet high were still standing; the

board sidewalks on the ground level were loose and ruinous,--a couple of

men trotting along them could make a blind man think a cavalry charge

was coming; everywhere the mud was black and deep, and in many places

malarious pools of stagnant water were standing. A Mississippi

inundation is the next most wasting and desolating infliction to a fire.

We had an enjoyable time here, on this sunny Sunday: two full hours'

liberty ashore while the boat discharged freight. In the back streets

but few white people were visible, but there were plenty of colored

folk--mainly women and girls; and almost without exception upholstered

in bright new clothes of swell and elaborate style and cut--a glaring

and hilarious contrast to the mournful mud and the pensive puddles.

Helena is the second town in Arkansas, in point of population--which is

placed at five thousand. The country about it is exceptionally

productive. Helena has a good cotton trade; handles from forty to sixty

thousand bales annually; she has a large lumber and grain commerce; has

a foundry, oil mills, machine shops and wagon factories--in brief has

$1,000,000 invested in manufacturing industries. She has two railways,

and is the commercial center of a broad and prosperous region. Her gross

receipts of money, annually, from all sources, are placed by the New

Orleans 'Times-Democrat' at $4,000,000.

Chapter 31 A Thumb-print and What Came of It

WE were approaching Napoleon, Arkansas. So I began to think about my

errand there. Time, noonday; and bright and sunny. This was bad--not

best, anyway; for mine was not (preferably) a noonday kind of errand.

The more I thought, the more that fact pushed itself upon me--now in one

form, now in another. Finally, it took the form of a distinct question:

is it good common sense to do the errand in daytime, when, by a little

sacrifice of comfort and inclination, you can have night for it, and no

inquisitive eyes around. This settled it. Plain question and plain

answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.

I got my friends into my stateroom, and said I was sorry to create

annoyance and disappointment, but that upon reflection it really seemed

best that we put our luggage ashore and stop over at Napoleon. Their

disapproval was prompt and loud; their language mutinous. Their main

argument was one which has always been the first to come to the surface,

in such cases, since the beginning of time: 'But you decided and AGREED

to stick to this boat, etc.; as if, having determined to do an unwise

thing, one is thereby bound to go ahead and make TWO unwise things of

it, by carrying out that determination.

I tried various mollifying tactics upon them, with reasonably good

success: under which encouragement, I increased my efforts; and, to show

them that I had not created this annoying errand, and was in no way to

blame for it, I presently drifted into its history--substantially as

follows:

Toward the end of last year, I spent a few months in Munich, Bavaria. In

November I was living in Fraulein Dahlweiner's PENSION, 1a, Karlstrasse;

but my working quarters were a mile from there, in the house of a widow

who supported herself by taking lodgers. She and her two young children

used to drop in every morning and talk German to me--by request. One

day, during a ramble about the city, I visited one of the two

establishments where the Government keeps and watches corpses until the

doctors decide that they are permanently dead, and not in a trance

state. It was a grisly place, that spacious room. There were thirty-six

corpses of adults in sight, stretched on their backs on slightly slanted

boards, in three long rows--all of them with wax-white, rigid faces, and

all of them wrapped in white shrouds. Along the sides of the room were

deep alcoves, like bay windows; and in each of these lay several marble-

visaged babes, utterly hidden and buried under banks of fresh flowers,

all but their faces and crossed hands. Around a finger of each of these

fifty still forms, both great and small, was a ring; and from the ring a

wire led to the ceiling, and thence to a bell in a watch-room yonder,

where, day and night, a watchman sits always alert and ready to spring

to the aid of any of that pallid company who, waking out of death, shall

make a movement--for any, even the slightest, movement will twitch the

wire and ring that fearful bell. I imagined myself a death-sentinel

drowsing there alone, far in the dragging watches of some wailing, gusty

night, and having in a twinkling all my body stricken to quivering jelly

by the sudden clamor of that awful summons! So I inquired about this

thing; asked what resulted usually? if the watchman died, and the

restored corpse came and did what it could to make his last moments

easy. But I was rebuked for trying to feed an idle and frivolous

curiosity in so solemn and so mournful a place; and went my way with a

humbled crest.

Next morning I was telling the widow my adventure, when she exclaimed--

'Come with me! I have a lodger who shall tell you all you want to know.

He has been a night-watchman there.'

He was a living man, but he did not look it. He was abed, and had his

head propped high on pillows; his face was wasted and colorless, his

deep-sunken eyes were shut; his hand, lying on his breast, was talon-

like, it was so bony and long-fingered. The widow began her introduction

of me. The man's eyes opened slowly, and glittered wickedly out from

the twilight of their caverns; he frowned a black frown; he lifted his

lean hand and waved us peremptorily away. But the widow kept straight

on, till she had got out the fact that I was a stranger and an American.

The man's face changed at once; brightened, became even eager--and the

next moment he and I were alone together.

I opened up in cast-iron German; he responded in quite flexible English;

thereafter we gave the German language a permanent rest.

This consumptive and I became good friends. I visited him every day,

and we talked about everything. At least, about everything but wives

and children. Let anybody's wife or anybody's child be mentioned, and

three things always followed: the most gracious and loving and tender

light glimmered in the man's eyes for a moment; faded out the next, and

in its place came that deadly look which had flamed there the first time

I ever saw his lids unclose; thirdly, he ceased from speech, there and

then for that day; lay silent, abstracted, and absorbed; apparently

heard nothing that I said; took no notice of my good-byes, and plainly

did not know, by either sight or hearing, when I left the room.

When I had been this Karl Ritter's daily and sole intimate during two

months, he one day said, abruptly--

'I will tell you my story.'

A DYING MAN S CONFESSION

Then he went on as follows:--

I have never given up, until now. But now I have given up. I am going

to die. I made up my mind last night that it must be, and very soon,

too. You say you are going to revisit your river, by-and-bye, when you

find opportunity. Very well; that, together with a certain strange

experience which fell to my lot last night, determines me to tell you my

history--for you will see Napoleon, Arkansas; and for my sake you will

stop there, and do a certain thing for me--a thing which you will

willingly undertake after you shall have heard my narrative.

Let us shorten the story wherever we can, for it will need it, being

long. You already know how I came to go to America, and how I came to

settle in that lonely region in the South. But you do not know that I

had a wife. My wife was young, beautiful, loving, and oh, so divinely

good and blameless and gentle! And our little girl was her mother in

miniature. It was the happiest of happy households.

One night--it was toward the close of the war--I woke up out of a sodden

lethargy, and found myself bound and gagged, and the air tainted with

chloroform! I saw two men in the room, and one was saying to the other,

in a hoarse whisper, 'I told her I would, if she made a noise, and as

for the child--'

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

'You said we'd only gag them and rob them, not hurt them; or I wouldn't

have come.'

'Shut up your whining; had to change the plan when they waked up; you

done all you could to protect them, now let that satisfy you; come, help

rummage.'

Both men were masked, and wore coarse, ragged 'nigger' clothes; they had

a bull's-eye lantern, and by its light I noticed that the gentler robber

had no thumb on his right hand. They rummaged around my poor cabin for a

moment; the head bandit then said, in his stage whisper--

'It's a waste of time--he shall tell where it's hid. Undo his gag, and

revive him up.'

The other said--

'All right--provided no clubbing.'

'No clubbing it is, then--provided he keeps still.'

They approached me; just then there was a sound outside; a sound of

voices and trampling hoofs; the robbers held their breath and listened;

the sounds came slowly nearer and nearer; then came a shout--

'HELLO, the house! Show a light, we want water.'

'The captain's voice, by G--!' said the stage-whispering ruffian, and

both robbers fled by the way of the back door, shutting off their

bull's-eye as they ran.

The strangers shouted several times more, then rode by--there seemed to

be a dozen of the horses--and I heard nothing more.

I struggled, but could not free myself from my bonds. I tried to speak,

but the gag was effective; I could not make a sound. I listened for my

wife's voice and my child's--listened long and intently, but no sound

came from the other end of the room where their bed was. This silence

became more and more awful, more and more ominous, every moment. Could

you have endured an hour of it, do you think? Pity me, then, who had to

endure three. Three hours--? it was three ages! Whenever the clock

struck, it seemed as if years had gone by since I had heard it last.

All this time I was struggling in my bonds; and at last, about dawn, I

got myself free, and rose up and stretched my stiff limbs. I was able

to distinguish details pretty well. The floor was littered with things

thrown there by the robbers during their search for my savings. The

first object that caught my particular attention was a document of mine

which I had seen the rougher of the two ruffians glance at and then cast

away. It had blood on it! I staggered to the other end of the room. Oh,

poor unoffending, helpless ones, there they lay, their troubles ended,

mine begun!

Did I appeal to the law--I? Does it quench the pauper's thirst if the

King drink for him? Oh, no, no, no--I wanted no impertinent

interference of the law. Laws and the gallows could not pay the debt

that was owing to me! Let the laws leave the matter in my hands, and

have no fears: I would find the debtor and collect the debt. How

accomplish this, do you say? How accomplish it, and feel so sure about

it, when I had neither seen the robbers' faces, nor heard their natural

voices, nor had any idea who they might be? Nevertheless, I WAS sure--

quite sure, quite confident. I had a clue--a clue which you would not

have valued--a clue which would not have greatly helped even a

detective, since he would lack the secret of how to apply it. I shall

come to that, presently--you shall see. Let us go on, now, taking things

in their due order. There was one circumstance which gave me a slant in

a definite direction to begin with: Those two robbers were manifestly

soldiers in tramp disguise; and not new to military service, but old in

it--regulars, perhaps; they did not acquire their soldierly attitude,

gestures, carriage, in a day, nor a month, nor yet in a year. So I

thought, but said nothing. And one of them had said, 'the captain's

voice, by G--!'--the one whose life I would have. Two miles away,

several regiments were in camp, and two companies of U.S. cavalry. When

I learned that Captain Blakely, of Company C had passed our way, that

night, with an escort, I said nothing, but in that company I resolved to

seek my man. In conversation I studiously and persistently described

the robbers as tramps, camp followers; and among this class the people

made useless search, none suspecting the soldiers but me.

Working patiently, by night, in my desolated home, I made a disguise for

myself out of various odds and ends of clothing; in the nearest village

I bought a pair of blue goggles. By-and-bye, when the military camp

broke up, and Company C was ordered a hundred miles north, to Napoleon,

I secreted my small hoard of money in my belt, and took my departure in

the night. When Company C arrived in Napoleon, I was already there. Yes,

I was there, with a new trade--fortune-teller. Not to seem partial, I

made friends and told fortunes among all the companies garrisoned there;

but I gave Company C the great bulk of my attentions. I made myself

limitlessly obliging to these particular men; they could ask me no

favor, put upon me no risk, which I would decline. I became the willing

butt of their jokes; this perfected my popularity; I became a favorite.

I early found a private who lacked a thumb--what joy it was to me! And

when I found that he alone, of all the company, had lost a thumb, my

last misgiving vanished; I was SURE I was on the right track. This

man's name was Kruger, a German. There were nine Germans in the company.

I watched, to see who might be his intimates; but he seemed to have no

especial intimates. But I was his intimate; and I took care to make the

intimacy grow. Sometimes I so hungered for my revenge that I could

hardly restrain myself from going on my knees and begging him to point

out the man who had murdered my wife and child; but I managed to bridle

my tongue. I bided my time, and went on telling fortunes, as

opportunity offered.

My apparatus was simple: a little red paint and a bit of white paper. I

painted the ball of the client's thumb, took a print of it on the paper,

studied it that night, and revealed his fortune to him next day. What

was my idea in this nonsense? It was this: When I was a youth, I knew

an old Frenchman who had been a prison-keeper for thirty years, and he

told me that there was one thing about a person which never changed,

from the cradle to the grave--the lines in the ball of the thumb; and he

said that these lines were never exactly alike in the thumbs of any two

human beings. In these days, we photograph the new criminal, and hang

his picture in the Rogues' Gallery for future reference; but that

Frenchman, in his day, used to take a print of the ball of a new

prisoner's thumb and put that away for future reference. He always said

that pictures were no good--future disguises could make them useless;

'The thumb's the only sure thing,' said he; 'you can't disguise that.'

And he used to prove his theory, too, on my friends and acquaintances;

it always succeeded.

I went on telling fortunes. Every night I shut myself in, all alone,

and studied the day's thumb-prints with a magnifying-glass. Imagine the

devouring eagerness with which I pored over those mazy red spirals, with

that document by my side which bore the right-hand thumb-and-finger-

marks of that unknown murderer, printed with the dearest blood--to me--

that was ever shed on this earth! And many and many a time I had to

repeat the same old disappointed remark, 'will they NEVER correspond!'

But my reward came at last. It was the print of the thumb of the forty-

third man of Company C whom I had experimented on--Private Franz Adler.

An hour before, I did not know the murderer's name, or voice, or figure,

or face, or nationality; but now I knew all these things! I believed I

might feel sure; the Frenchman's repeated demonstrations being so good a

warranty. Still, there was a way to MAKE sure. I had an impression of

Kruger's left thumb. In the morning I took him aside when he was off

duty; and when we were out of sight and hearing of witnesses, I said,

impressively--

'A part of your fortune is so grave, that I thought it would be better

for you if I did not tell it in public. You and another man, whose

fortune I was studying last night,--Private Adler,--have been murdering

a woman and a child! You are being dogged: within five days both of you

will be assassinated.'

He dropped on his knees, frightened out of his wits; and for five

minutes he kept pouring out the same set of words, like a demented

person, and in the same half-crying way which was one of my memories of

that murderous night in my cabin--

'I didn't do it; upon my soul I didn't do it; and I tried to keep HIM

from doing it; I did, as God is my witness. He did it alone.'

This was all I wanted. And I tried to get rid of the fool; but no, he

clung to me, imploring me to save him from the assassin. He said--

'I have money--ten thousand dollars--hid away, the fruit of loot and

thievery; save me--tell me what to do, and you shall have it, every

penny. Two-thirds of it is my cousin Adler's; but you can take it all.

We hid it when we first came here. But I hid it in a new place

yesterday, and have not told him--shall not tell him. I was going to

desert, and get away with it all. It is gold, and too heavy to carry

when one is running and dodging; but a woman who has been gone over the

river two days to prepare my way for me is going to follow me with it;

and if I got no chance to describe the hiding-place to her I was going

to slip my silver watch into her hand, or send it to her, and she would

understand. There's a piece of paper in the back of the case, which

tells it all. Here, take the watch--tell me what to do!'

He was trying to press his watch upon me, and was exposing the paper and

explaining it to me, when Adler appeared on the scene, about a dozen

yards away. I said to poor Kruger--

'Put up your watch, I don't want it. You shan't come to any harm. Go,

now; I must tell Adler his fortune. Presently I will tell you how to

escape the assassin; meantime I shall have to examine your thumbmark

again. Say nothing to Adler about this thing--say nothing to anybody.'

He went away filled with fright and gratitude, poor devil. I told Adler

a long fortune--purposely so long that I could not finish it; promised

to come to him on guard, that night, and tell him the really important

part of it--the tragical part of it, I said--so must be out of reach of

eavesdroppers. They always kept a picket-watch outside the town--mere

discipline and ceremony--no occasion for it, no enemy around.

Toward midnight I set out, equipped with the countersign, and picked my

way toward the lonely region where Adler was to keep his watch. It was

so dark that I stumbled right on a dim figure almost before I could get

out a protecting word. The sentinel hailed and I answered, both at the

same moment. I added, 'It's only me--the fortune-teller.' Then I slipped

to the poor devil's side, and without a word I drove my dirk into his

heart! YA WOHL, laughed I, it WAS the tragedy part of his fortune,

indeed! As he fell from his horse, he clutched at me, and my blue

goggles remained in his hand; and away plunged the beast dragging him,

with his foot in the stirrup.

I fled through the woods, and made good my escape, leaving the accusing

goggles behind me in that dead man's hand.

This was fifteen or sixteen years ago. Since then I have wandered

aimlessly about the earth, sometimes at work, sometimes idle; sometimes

with money, sometimes with none; but always tired of life, and wishing

it was done, for my mission here was finished, with the act of that

night; and the only pleasure, solace, satisfaction I had, in all those

tedious years, was in the daily reflection, 'I have killed him!'

Four years ago, my health began to fail. I had wandered into Munich, in

my purposeless way. Being out of money, I sought work, and got it; did

my duty faithfully about a year, and was then given the berth of night

watchman yonder in that dead-house which you visited lately. The place

suited my mood. I liked it. I liked being with the dead--liked being

alone with them. I used to wander among those rigid corpses, and peer

into their austere faces, by the hour. The later the time, the more

impressive it was; I preferred the late time. Sometimes I turned the

lights low: this gave perspective, you see; and the imagination could

play; always, the dim receding ranks of the dead inspired one with weird

and fascinating fancies. Two years ago--I had been there a year then--I

was sitting all alone in the watch-room, one gusty winter's night,

chilled, numb, comfortless; drowsing gradually into unconsciousness; the

sobbing of the wind and the slamming of distant shutters falling fainter

and fainter upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenly

that dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head! The shock

of it nearly paralyzed me; for it was the first time I had ever heard

it.

I gathered myself together and flew to the corpse-room. About midway

down the outside rank, a shrouded figure was sitting upright, wagging

its head slowly from one side to the other--a grisly spectacle! Its side

was toward me. I hurried to it and peered into its face. Heavens, it

was Adler!

Can you divine what my first thought was? Put into words, it was this:

'It seems, then, you escaped me once: there will be a different result

this time!'

Evidently this creature was suffering unimaginable terrors. Think what

it must have been to wake up in the midst of that voiceless hush, and,

look out over that grim congregation of the dead! What gratitude shone

in his skinny white face when he saw a living form before him! And how

the fervency of this mute gratitude was augmented when his eyes fell

upon the life-giving cordials which I carried in my hands! Then imagine

the horror which came into this pinched face when I put the cordials

behind me, and said mockingly--

'Speak up, Franz Adler--call upon these dead. Doubtless they will

listen and have pity; but here there is none else that will.'

He tried to speak, but that part of the shroud which bound his jaws,

held firm and would not let him. He tried to lift imploring hands, but

they were crossed upon his breast and tied. I said--

'Shout, Franz Adler; make the sleepers in the distant streets hear you

and bring help. Shout--and lose no time, for there is little to lose.

What, you cannot? That is a pity; but it is no matter--it does not

always bring help. When you and your cousin murdered a helpless woman

and child in a cabin in Arkansas--my wife, it was, and my child!--they

shrieked for help, you remember; but it did no good; you remember that

it did no good, is it not so? Your teeth chatter--then why cannot you

shout? Loosen the bandages with your hands--then you can. Ah, I see--

your hands are tied, they cannot aid you. How strangely things repeat

themselves, after long years; for MY hands were tied, that night, you

remember? Yes, tied much as yours are now--how odd that is. I could

not pull free. It did not occur to you to untie me; it does not occur to

me to untie you. Sh--! there's a late footstep. It is coming this way.

Hark, how near it is! One can count the footfalls--one--two--three.

There--it is just outside. Now is the time! Shout, man, shout!--it is

the one sole chance between you and eternity! Ah, you see you have

delayed too long--it is gone by. There--it is dying out. It is gone!

Think of it--reflect upon it--you have heard a human footstep for the

last time. How curious it must be, to listen to so common a sound as

that, and know that one will never hear the fellow to it again.'

Oh, my friend, the agony in that shrouded face was ecstasy to see! I

thought of a new torture, and applied it--assisting myself with a trifle

of lying invention--

'That poor Kruger tried to save my wife and child, and I did him a

grateful good turn for it when the time came. I persuaded him to rob

you; and I and a woman helped him to desert, and got him away in

safety.' A look as of surprise and triumph shone out dimly through the

anguish in my victim's face. I was disturbed, disquieted. I said--

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

A negative shake of the head.

'No? What happened, then?'

The satisfaction in the shrouded face was still plainer. The man tried

to mumble out some words--could not succeed; tried to express something

with his obstructed hands--failed; paused a moment, then feebly tilted

his head, in a meaning way, toward the corpse that lay nearest him.

'Dead?' I asked. 'Failed to escape?--caught in the act and shot?'

Negative shake of the head.

'How, then?'

Again the man tried to do something with his hands. I watched closely,

but could not guess the intent. I bent over and watched still more

intently. He had twisted a thumb around and was weakly punching at his

breast with it. 'Ah--stabbed, do you mean?'

Affirmative nod, accompanied by a spectral smile of such peculiar

devilishness, that it struck an awakening light through my dull brain,

and I cried--

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

none but you.'

The affirmative nod of the re-dying rascal was as joyous as his failing

strength was able to put into its expression.

'O, miserable, miserable me, to slaughter the pitying soul that, stood a

friend to my darlings when they were helpless, and would have saved them

if he could! miserable, oh, miserable, miserable me!'

I fancied I heard the muffled gurgle of a, mocking laugh. I took my face

out of my hands, and saw my enemy sinking back upon his inclined board.

He was a satisfactory long time dying. He had a wonderful vitality, an

astonishing constitution. Yes, he was a pleasant long time at it. I got

a chair and a newspaper, and sat down by him and read. Occasionally I

took a sip of brandy. This was necessary, on account of the cold. But

I did it partly because I saw, that along at first, whenever I reached

for the bottle, he thought I was going to give him some. I read aloud:

mainly imaginary accounts of people snatched from the grave's threshold

and restored to life and vigor by a few spoonsful of liquor and a warm

bath. Yes, he had a long, hard death of it--three hours and six

minutes, from the time he rang his bell.

It is believed that in all these eighteen years that have elapsed since

the institution of the corpse-watch, no shrouded occupant of the

Bavarian dead-houses has ever rung its bell. Well, it is a harmless

belief. Let it stand at that.

The chill of that death-room had penetrated my bones. It revived and

fastened upon me the disease which had been afflicting me, but which, up

to that night, had been steadily disappearing. That man murdered my

wife and my child; and in three days hence he will have added me to his

list. No matter--God! how delicious the memory of it!--I caught him

escaping from his grave, and thrust him back into it.

After that night, I was confined to my bed for a week; but as soon as I

could get about, I went to the dead-house books and got the number of

the house which Adler had died in. A wretched lodging-house, it was. It

was my idea that he would naturally have gotten hold of Kruger's

effects, being his cousin; and I wanted to get Kruger's watch, if I

could. But while I was sick, Adler's things had been sold and

scattered, all except a few old letters, and some odds and ends of no

value. However, through those letters, I traced out a son of Kruger's,

the only relative left. He is a man of thirty now, a shoemaker by trade,

and living at No. 14 Konigstrasse, Mannheim--widower, with several small

children. Without explaining to him why, I have furnished two-thirds of

his support, ever since.

Now, as to that watch--see how strangely things happen! I traced it

around and about Germany for more than a year, at considerable cost in

money and vexation; and at last I got it. Got it, and was unspeakably

glad; opened it, and found nothing in it! Why, I might have known that

that bit of paper was not going to stay there all this time. Of course

I gave up that ten thousand dollars then; gave it up, and dropped it out

of my mind: and most sorrowfully, for I had wanted it for Kruger's son.

Last night, when I consented at last that I must die, I began to make

ready. I proceeded to burn all useless papers; and sure enough, from a

batch of Adler's, not previously examined with thoroughness, out dropped

that long-desired scrap! I recognized it in a moment. Here it is--I

will translate it:

'Brick livery stable, stone foundation, middle of town, corner of

Orleans and Market. Corner toward Court-house. Third stone, fourth row.

Stick notice there, saying how many are to come.'

There--take it, and preserve it. Kruger explained that that stone was

removable; and that it was in the north wall of the foundation, fourth

row from the top, and third stone from the west. The money is secreted

behind it. He said the closing sentence was a blind, to mislead in case

the paper should fall into wrong hands. It probably performed that

office for Adler.

Now I want to beg that when you make your intended journey down the

river, you will hunt out that hidden money, and send it to Adam Kruger,

care of the Mannheim address which I have mentioned. It will make a

rich man of him, and I shall sleep the sounder in my grave for knowing

that I have done what I could for the son of the man who tried to save

my wife and child--albeit my hand ignorantly struck him down, whereas

the impulse of my heart would have been to shield and serve him.

Chapter 32 The Disposal of a Bonanza

'SUCH was Ritter's narrative,' said I to my two friends. There was a

profound and impressive silence, which lasted a considerable time; then

both men broke into a fusillade of exciting and admiring ejaculations

over the strange incidents of the tale; and this, along with a rattling

fire of questions, was kept up until all hands were about out of breath.

Then my friends began to cool down, and draw off, under shelter of

occasional volleys, into silence and abysmal reverie. For ten minutes

now, there was stillness. Then Rogers said dreamily--

'Ten thousand dollars.'

Adding, after a considerable pause--

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

Presently the poet inquired--

'Are you going to send it to him right away?'

'Yes,' I said. 'It is a queer question.'

No reply. After a little, Rogers asked, hesitatingly:

'ALL of it?--That is--I mean--'

'Certainly, all of it.'

I was going to say more, but stopped--was stopped by a train of thought

which started up in me. Thompson spoke, but my mind was absent, and I

did not catch what he said. But I heard Rogers answer--

'Yes, it seems so to me. It ought to be quite sufficient; for I don't

see that he has done anything.'

Presently the poet said--

'When you come to look at it, it is more than sufficient. Just look at

it--five thousand dollars! Why, he couldn't spend it in a lifetime! And

it would injure him, too; perhaps ruin him--you want to look at that. In

a little while he would throw his last away, shut up his shop, maybe

take to drinking, maltreat his motherless children, drift into other

evil courses, go steadily from bad to worse--'

'Yes, that's it,' interrupted Rogers, fervently, 'I've seen it a hundred

times--yes, more than a hundred. You put money into the hands of a man

like that, if you want to destroy him, that's all; just put money into

his hands, it's all you've got to do; and if it don't pull him down, and

take all the usefulness out of him, and all the self-respect and

everything, then I don't know human nature--ain't that so, Thompson?

And even if we were to give him a THIRD of it; why, in less than six

months--'

'Less than six WEEKS, you'd better say!' said I, warming up and breaking

in. 'Unless he had that three thousand dollars in safe hands where he

couldn't touch it, he would no more last you six weeks than--'

'Of COURSE he wouldn't,' said Thompson; 'I've edited books for that kind

of people; and the moment they get their hands on the royalty--maybe

it's three thousand, maybe it's two thousand--'

'What business has that shoemaker with two thousand dollars, I should

like to know?' broke in Rogers, earnestly. 'A man perhaps perfectly

contented now, there in Mannheim, surrounded by his own class, eating

his bread with the appetite which laborious industry alone can give,

enjoying his humble life, honest, upright, pure in heart; and BLEST!--

yes, I say blest! blest above all the myriads that go in silk attire and

walk the empty artificial round of social folly--but just you put that

temptation before him once! just you lay fifteen hundred dollars before

a man like that, and say--'

'Fifteen hundred devils!' cried I, 'FIVE hundred would rot his

principles, paralyze his industry, drag him to the rumshop, thence to

the gutter, thence to the almshouse, thence to ----'

'WHY put upon ourselves this crime, gentlemen?' interrupted the poet

earnestly and appealingly. 'He is happy where he is, and AS he is.

Every sentiment of honor, every sentiment of charity, every sentiment of

high and sacred benevolence warns us, beseeches us, commands us to leave

him undisturbed. That is real friendship, that is true friendship. We

could follow other courses that would be more showy; but none that would

be so truly kind and wise, depend upon it.'

After some further talk, it became evident that each of us, down in his

heart, felt some misgivings over this settlement of the matter. It was

manifest that we all felt that we ought to send the poor shoemaker

SOMETHING. There was long and thoughtful discussion of this point; and

we finally decided to send him a chromo.

Well, now that everything seemed to be arranged satisfactorily to

everybody concerned, a new trouble broke out: it transpired that these

two men were expecting to share equally in the money with me. That was

not my idea. I said that if they got half of it between them they might

consider themselves lucky. Rogers said--

'Who would have had ANY if it hadn't been for me? I flung out the first

hint--but for that it would all have gone to the shoemaker.'

Thompson said that he was thinking of the thing himself at the very

moment that Rogers had originally spoken.

I retorted that the idea would have occurred to me plenty soon enough,

and without anybody's help. I was slow about thinking, maybe, but I was

sure.

This matter warmed up into a quarrel; then into a fight; and each man

got pretty badly battered. As soon as I had got myself mended up after

a fashion, I ascended to the hurricane deck in a pretty sour humor. I

found Captain McCord there, and said, as pleasantly as my humor would

permit--

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

Napoleon.'

'Go ashore where?'

'Napoleon.'

The captain laughed; but seeing that I was not in a jovial mood, stopped

that and said--

'But are you serious?'

'Serious? I certainly am.'

The captain glanced up at the pilot-house and said--

'He wants to get off at Napoleon!'

'Napoleon ?'

'That's what he says.'

'Great Caesar's ghost!'

Uncle Mumford approached along the deck. The captain said--

'Uncle, here's a friend of yours wants to get off at Napoleon!'

'Well, by ---?'

I said--

'Come, what is all this about? Can't a man go ashore at Napoleon if he

wants to?'

'Why, hang it, don't you know? There ISN'T any Napoleon any more.

Hasn't been for years and years. The Arkansas River burst through it,

tore it all to rags, and emptied it into the Mississippi!'

'Carried the WHOLE town away?-banks, churches, jails, newspaper-offices,

court-house, theater, fire department, livery stable EVERYTHING ?'

'Everything. just a fifteen-minute job.' or such a matter. Didn't

leave hide nor hair, shred nor shingle of it, except the fag-end of a

shanty and one brick chimney. This boat is paddling along right now,

where the dead-center of that town used to be; yonder is the brick

chimney-all that's left of Napoleon. These dense woods on the right used

to be a mile back of the town. Take a look behind you--up-stream--now

you begin to recognize this country, don't you?'

'Yes, I do recognize it now. It is the most wonderful thing I ever

heard of; by a long shot the most wonderful--and unexpected.'

Mr. Thompson and Mr. Rogers had arrived, meantime, with satchels and

umbrellas, and had silently listened to the captain's news. Thompson put

a half-dollar in my hand and said softly--

'For my share of the chromo.'

Rogers followed suit.

Yes, it was an astonishing thing to see the Mississippi rolling between

unpeopled shores and straight over the spot where I used to see a good

big self-complacent town twenty years ago. Town that was county-seat of

a great and important county; town with a big United States marine

hospital; town of innumerable fights--an inquest every day; town where I

had used to know the prettiest girl, and the most accomplished in the

whole Mississippi Valley; town where we were handed the first printed

news of the 'Pennsylvania's' mournful disaster a quarter of a century

ago; a town no more--swallowed up, vanished, gone to feed the fishes;

nothing left but a fragment of a shanty and a crumbling brick chimney!

Chapter 33 Refreshments and Ethics

IN regard to Island 74, which is situated not far from the former

Napoleon, a freak of the river here has sorely perplexed the laws of men

and made them a vanity and a jest. When the State of Arkansas was

chartered, she controlled 'to the center of the river'--a most unstable

line. The State of Mississippi claimed 'to the channel'--another shifty

and unstable line. No. 74 belonged to Arkansas. By and by a cut-off

threw this big island out of Arkansas, and yet not within Mississippi.

'Middle of the river' on one side of it, 'channel' on the other. That

is as I understand the problem. Whether I have got the details right or

wrong, this FACT remains: that here is this big and exceedingly valuable

island of four thousand acres, thrust out in the cold, and belonging to

neither the one State nor the other; paying taxes to neither, owing

allegiance to neither. One man owns the whole island, and of right is

'the man without a country.'

Island 92 belongs to Arkansas. The river moved it over and joined it to

Mississippi. A chap established a whiskey shop there, without a

Mississippi license, and enriched himself upon Mississippi custom under

Arkansas protection (where no license was in those days required).

We glided steadily down the river in the usual privacy--steamboat or

other moving thing seldom seen. Scenery as always: stretch upon stretch

of almost unbroken forest, on both sides of the river; soundless

solitude. Here and there a cabin or two, standing in small openings on

the gray and grassless banks--cabins which had formerly stood a quarter

or half-mile farther to the front, and gradually been pulled farther and

farther back as the shores caved in. As at Pilcher's Point, for

instance, where the cabins had been moved back three hundred yards in

three months, so we were told; but the caving banks had already caught

up with them, and they were being conveyed rearward once more.

Napoleon had but small opinion of Greenville, Mississippi, in the old

times; but behold, Napoleon is gone to the cat-fishes, and here is

Greenville full of life and activity, and making a considerable flourish

in the Valley; having three thousand inhabitants, it is said, and doing

a gross trade of $2,500,000 annually. A growing town.

There was much talk on the boat about the Calhoun Land Company, an

enterprise which is expected to work wholesome results. Colonel Calhoun,

a grandson of the statesman, went to Boston and formed a syndicate which

purchased a large tract of land on the river, in Chicot County,

Arkansas--some ten thousand acres--for cotton-growing. The purpose is to

work on a cash basis: buy at first hands, and handle their own product;

supply their negro laborers with provisions and necessaries at a

trifling profit, say 8 or 10 per cent.; furnish them comfortable

quarters, etc., and encourage them to save money and remain on the

place. If this proves a financial success, as seems quite certain, they

propose to establish a banking-house in Greenville, and lend money at an

unburdensome rate of interest--6 per cent. is spoken of.

The trouble heretofore has been--I am quoting remarks of planters and

steamboatmen--that the planters, although owning the land, were without

cash capital; had to hypothecate both land and crop to carry on the

business. Consequently, the commission dealer who furnishes the money

takes some risk and demands big interest--usually 10 per cent., and

2{half} per cent. for negotiating the loan. The planter has also to buy

his supplies through the same dealer, paying commissions and profits.

Then when he ships his crop, the dealer adds his commissions, insurance,

etc. So, taking it by and large, and first and last, the dealer's share

of that crop is about 25 per cent.'{footnote ['But what can the State do

where the people are under subjection to rates of interest ranging from

18 to 30 per cent., and are also under the necessity of purchasing their

crops in advance even of planting, at these rates, for the privilege of

purchasing all their supplies at 100 per cent. profit?'--EDWARD

ATKINSON.]}

A cotton-planter's estimate of the average margin of profit on planting,

in his section: One man and mule will raise ten acres of cotton, giving

ten bales cotton, worth, say, $500; cost of producing, say $350; net

profit, $150, or $15 per acre. There is also a profit now from the

cotton-seed, which formerly had little value--none where much

transportation was necessary. In sixteen hundred pounds crude cotton

four hundred are lint, worth, say, ten cents a pound; and twelve hundred

pounds of seed, worth $12 or $13 per ton. Maybe in future even the

stems will not be thrown away. Mr. Edward Atkinson says that for each

bale of cotton there are fifteen hundred pounds of stems, and that these

are very rich in phosphate of lime and potash; that when ground and

mixed with ensilage or cotton-seed meal (which is too rich for use as

fodder in large quantities), the stem mixture makes a superior food,

rich in all the elements needed for the production of milk, meat, and

bone. Heretofore the stems have been considered a nuisance.

Complaint is made that the planter remains grouty toward the former

slave, since the war; will have nothing but a chill business relation

with him, no sentiment permitted to intrude, will not keep a 'store'

himself, and supply the negro's wants and thus protect the negro's

pocket and make him able and willing to stay on the place and an

advantage to him to do it, but lets that privilege to some thrifty

Israelite, who encourages the thoughtless negro and wife to buy all

sorts of things which they could do without--buy on credit, at big

prices, month after month, credit based on the negro's share of the

growing crop; and at the end of the season, the negro's share belongs to

the Israelite,' the negro is in debt besides, is discouraged,

dissatisfied, restless, and both he and the planter are injured; for he

will take steamboat and migrate, and the planter must get a stranger in

his place who does not know him, does not care for him, will fatten the

Israelite a season, and follow his predecessor per steamboat.

It is hoped that the Calhoun Company will show, by its humane and

protective treatment of its laborers, that its method is the most

profitable for both planter and negro; and it is believed that a general

adoption of that method will then follow.

And where so many are saying their say, shall not the barkeeper testify?

He is thoughtful, observant, never drinks; endeavors to earn his salary,

and WOULD earn it if there were custom enough. He says the people along

here in Mississippi and Louisiana will send up the river to buy

vegetables rather than raise them, and they will come aboard at the

landings and buy fruits of the barkeeper. Thinks they 'don't know

anything but cotton;' believes they don't know how to raise vegetables

and fruit--'at least the most of them.' Says 'a nigger will go to H for

a watermelon' ('H' is all I find in the stenographer's report--means

Halifax probably, though that seems a good way to go for a watermelon).

Barkeeper buys watermelons for five cents up the river, brings them down

and sells them for fifty. 'Why does he mix such elaborate and

picturesque drinks for the nigger hands on the boat?' Because they

won't have any other. 'They want a big drink; don't make any difference

what you make it of, they want the worth of their money. You give a

nigger a plain gill of half-a-dollar brandy for five cents--will he

touch it? No. Ain't size enough to it. But you put up a pint of all

kinds of worthless rubbish, and heave in some red stuff to make it

beautiful--red's the main thing--and he wouldn't put down that glass to

go to a circus.' All the bars on this Anchor Line are rented and owned

by one firm. They furnish the liquors from their own establishment, and

hire the barkeepers 'on salary.' Good liquors? Yes, on some of the

boats, where there are the kind of passengers that want it and can pay

for it. On the other boats? No. Nobody but the deck hands and firemen

to drink it. 'Brandy? Yes, I've got brandy, plenty of it; but you

don't want any of it unless you've made your will.' It isn't as it used

to be in the old times. Then everybody traveled by steamboat, everybody

drank, and everybody treated everybody else. 'Now most everybody goes by

railroad, and the rest don't drink.' In the old times the barkeeper

owned the bar himself, 'and was gay and smarty and talky and all jeweled

up, and was the toniest aristocrat on the boat; used to make $2,000 on a

trip. A father who left his son a steamboat bar, left him a fortune. Now

he leaves him board and lodging; yes, and washing, if a shirt a trip

will do. Yes, indeedy, times are changed. Why, do you know, on the

principal line of boats on the Upper Mississippi, they don't have any

bar at all! Sounds like poetry, but it's the petrified truth.'

Chapter 34 Tough Yarns

STACK ISLAND. I remembered Stack Island; also Lake Providence,

Louisiana--which is the first distinctly Southern-looking town you come

to, downward-bound; lies level and low, shade-trees hung with venerable

gray beards of Spanish moss; 'restful, pensive, Sunday aspect about the

place,' comments Uncle Mumford, with feeling--also with truth.

A Mr. H. furnished some minor details of fact concerning this region

which I would have hesitated to believe if I had not known him to be a

steamboat mate. He was a passenger of ours, a resident of Arkansas

City, and bound to Vicksburg to join his boat, a little Sunflower

packet. He was an austere man, and had the reputation of being

singularly unworldly, for a river man. Among other things, he said that

Arkansas had been injured and kept back by generations of exaggerations

concerning the mosquitoes here. One may smile, said he, and turn the

matter off as being a small thing; but when you come to look at the

effects produced, in the way of discouragement of immigration, and

diminished values of property, it was quite the opposite of a small

thing, or thing in any wise to be coughed down or sneered at. These

mosquitoes had been persistently represented as being formidable and

lawless; whereas 'the truth is, they are feeble, insignificant in size,

diffident to a fault, sensitive'--and so on, and so on; you would have

supposed he was talking about his family. But if he was soft on the

Arkansas mosquitoes, he was hard enough on the mosquitoes of Lake

Providence to make up for it--'those Lake Providence colossi,' as he

finely called them. He said that two of them could whip a dog, and that

four of them could hold a man down; and except help come, they would

kill him--'butcher him,' as he expressed it. Referred in a sort of

casual way--and yet significant way--to 'the fact that the life policy

in its simplest form is unknown in Lake Providence--they take out a

mosquito policy besides.' He told many remarkable things about those

lawless insects. Among others, said he had seen them try to vote.

Noticing that this statement seemed to be a good deal of a strain on us,

he modified it a little: said he might have been mistaken, as to that

particular, but knew he had seen them around the polls 'canvassing.'

There was another passenger--friend of H.'s--who backed up the harsh

evidence against those mosquitoes, and detailed some stirring adventures

which he had had with them. The stories were pretty sizable, merely

pretty sizable; yet Mr. H. was continually interrupting with a cold,

inexorable 'Wait--knock off twenty-five per cent. of that; now go on;'

or, 'Wait--you are getting that too strong; cut it down, cut it down--

you get a leetle too much costumery on to your statements: always dress

a fact in tights, never in an ulster;' or, 'Pardon, once more: if you

are going to load anything more on to that statement, you want to get a

couple of lighters and tow the rest, because it's drawing all the water

there is in the river already; stick to facts--just stick to the cold

facts; what these gentlemen want for a book is the frozen truth--ain't

that so, gentlemen?' He explained privately that it was necessary to

watch this man all the time, and keep him within bounds; it would not do

to neglect this precaution, as he, Mr. H., 'knew to his sorrow.' Said

he, 'I will not deceive you; he told me such a monstrous lie once, that

it swelled my left ear up, and spread it so that I was actually not able

to see out around it; it remained so for months, and people came miles

to see me fan myself with it.'

Chapter 35 Vicksburg During the Trouble

WE used to plow past the lofty hill-city, Vicksburg, down-stream; but we

cannot do that now. A cut-off has made a country town of it, like

Osceola, St. Genevieve, and several others. There is currentless water

--also a big island--in front of Vicksburg now. You come down the river

the other side of the island, then turn and come up to the town; that

is, in high water: in low water you can't come up, but must land some

distance below it.

Signs and scars still remain, as reminders of Vicksburg's tremendous war

experiences; earthworks, trees crippled by the cannon balls, cave-

refuges in the clay precipices, etc. The caves did good service during

the six weeks' bombardment of the city--May 8 to July 4, 1863. They

were used by the non-combatants--mainly by the women and children; not

to live in constantly, but to fly to for safety on occasion. They were

mere holes, tunnels, driven into the perpendicular clay bank, then

branched Y shape, within the hill. Life in Vicksburg, during the six

weeks was perhaps--but wait; here are some materials out of which to

reproduce it:--

Population, twenty-seven thousand soldiers and three thousand non-

combatants; the city utterly cut off from the world--walled solidly in,

the frontage by gunboats, the rear by soldiers and batteries; hence, no

buying and selling with the outside; no passing to and fro; no God-

speeding a parting guest, no welcoming a coming one; no printed acres of

world-wide news to be read at breakfast, mornings--a tedious dull

absence of such matter, instead; hence, also, no running to see

steamboats smoking into view in the distance up or down, and plowing

toward the town--for none came, the river lay vacant and undisturbed; no

rush and turmoil around the railway station, no struggling over

bewildered swarms of passengers by noisy mobs of hackmen--all quiet

there; flour two hundred dollars a barrel, sugar thirty, corn ten

dollars a bushel, bacon five dollars a pound, rum a hundred dollars a

gallon; other things in proportion: consequently, no roar and racket of

drays and carriages tearing along the streets; nothing for them to do,

among that handful of non-combatants of exhausted means; at three

o'clock in the morning, silence; silence so dead that the measured tramp

of a sentinel can be heard a seemingly impossible distance; out of

hearing of this lonely sound, perhaps the stillness is absolute: all in

a moment come ground-shaking thunder-crashes of artillery, the sky is

cobwebbed with the crisscrossing red lines streaming from soaring bomb-

shells, and a rain of iron fragments descends upon the city; descends

upon the empty streets: streets which are not empty a moment later, but

mottled with dim figures of frantic women and children scurrying from

home and bed toward the cave dungeons--encouraged by the humorous grim

soldiery, who shout 'Rats, to your holes!' and laugh.

The cannon-thunder rages, shells scream and crash overhead, the iron

rain pours down, one hour, two hours, three, possibly six, then stops;

silence follows, but the streets are still empty; the silence continues;

by-and-bye a head projects from a cave here and there and yonder, and

reconnoitres, cautiously; the silence still continuing, bodies follow

heads, and jaded, half smothered creatures group themselves about,

stretch their cramped limbs, draw in deep draughts of the grateful fresh

air, gossip with the neighbors from the next cave; maybe straggle off

home presently, or take a lounge through the town, if the stillness

continues; and will scurry to the holes again, by-and-bye, when the war-

tempest breaks forth once more.

There being but three thousand of these cave-dwellers--merely the

population of a village--would they not come to know each other, after a

week or two, and familiarly; insomuch that the fortunate or unfortunate

experiences of one would be of interest to all?

Those are the materials furnished by history. From them might not

almost anybody reproduce for himself the life of that time in Vicksburg?

Could you, who did not experience it, come nearer to reproducing it to

the imagination of another non-participant than could a Vicksburger who

did experience it? It seems impossible; and yet there are reasons why

it might not really be. When one makes his first voyage in a ship, it

is an experience which multitudinously bristles with striking novelties;

novelties which are in such sharp contrast with all this person's former

experiences that they take a seemingly deathless grip upon his

imagination and memory. By tongue or pen he can make a landsman live

that strange and stirring voyage over with him; make him see it all and

feel it all. But if he wait? If he make ten voyages in succession--what

then? Why, the thing has lost color, snap, surprise; and has become

commonplace. The man would have nothing to tell that would quicken a

landsman's pulse.

Years ago, I talked with a couple of the Vicksburg non-combatants--a man

and his wife. Left to tell their story in their own way, those people

told it without fire, almost without interest.

A week of their wonderful life there would have made their tongues

eloquent for ever perhaps; but they had six weeks of it, and that wore

the novelty all out; they got used to being bomb-shelled out of home and

into the ground; the matter became commonplace. After that, the

possibility of their ever being startlingly interesting in their talks

about it was gone. What the man said was to this effect:--

'It got to be Sunday all the time. Seven Sundays in the week--to us,

anyway. We hadn't anything to do, and time hung heavy. Seven Sundays,

and all of them broken up at one time or another, in the day or in the

night, by a few hours of the awful storm of fire and thunder and iron.

At first we used to shin for the holes a good deal faster than we did

afterwards. The first time, I forgot the children, and Maria fetched

them both along. When she was all safe in the cave she fainted. Two or

three weeks afterwards, when she was running for the holes, one morning,

through a shell-shower, a big shell burst near her, and covered her all

over with dirt, and a piece of the iron carried away her game-bag of

false hair from the back of her head. Well, she stopped to get that

game-bag before she shoved along again! Was getting used to things

already, you see. We all got so that we could tell a good deal about

shells; and after that we didn't always go under shelter if it was a

light shower. Us men would loaf around and talk; and a man would say,

'There she goes!' and name the kind of shell it was from the sound of

it, and go on talking--if there wasn't any danger from it. If a shell

was bursting close over us, we stopped talking and stood still;--

uncomfortable, yes, but it wasn't safe to move. When it let go, we went

on talking again, if nobody hurt--maybe saying, 'That was a ripper!' or

some such commonplace comment before we resumed; or, maybe, we would see

a shell poising itself away high in the air overhead. In that case,

every fellow just whipped out a sudden, 'See you again, gents!' and

shoved. Often and often I saw gangs of ladies promenading the streets,

looking as cheerful as you please, and keeping an eye canted up watching

the shells; and I've seen them stop still when they were uncertain about

what a shell was going to do, and wait and make certain; and after that

they sa'ntered along again, or lit out for shelter, according to the

verdict. Streets in some towns have a litter of pieces of paper, and

odds and ends of one sort or another lying around. Ours hadn't; they

had IRON litter. Sometimes a man would gather up all the iron fragments

and unbursted shells in his neighborhood, and pile them into a kind of

monument in his front yard--a ton of it, sometimes. No glass left;

glass couldn't stand such a bombardment; it was all shivered out.

Windows of the houses vacant--looked like eye-holes in a skull. WHOLE

panes were as scarce as news.

'We had church Sundays. Not many there, along at first; but by-and-bye

pretty good turnouts. I've seen service stop a minute, and everybody

sit quiet--no voice heard, pretty funeral-like then--and all the more so

on account of the awful boom and crash going on outside and overhead;

and pretty soon, when a body could be heard, service would go on again.

Organs and church-music mixed up with a bombardment is a powerful queer

combination--along at first. Coming out of church, one morning, we had

an accident--the only one that happened around me on a Sunday. I was

just having a hearty handshake with a friend I hadn't seen for a while,

and saying, 'Drop into our cave to-night, after bombardment; we've got

hold of a pint of prime wh--.' Whiskey, I was going to say, you know,

but a shell interrupted. A chunk of it cut the man's arm off, and left

it dangling in my hand. And do you know the thing that is going to

stick the longest in my memory, and outlast everything else, little and

big, I reckon, is the mean thought I had then? It was 'the whiskey IS

SAVED.' And yet, don't you know, it was kind of excusable; because it

was as scarce as diamonds, and we had only just that little; never had

another taste during the siege.

'Sometimes the caves were desperately crowded, and always hot and close.

Sometimes a cave had twenty or twenty-five people packed into it; no

turning-room for anybody; air so foul, sometimes, you couldn't have made

a candle burn in it. A child was born in one of those caves one night,

Think of that; why, it was like having it born in a trunk.

'Twice we had sixteen people in our cave; and a number of times we had a

dozen. Pretty suffocating in there. We always had eight; eight

belonged there. Hunger and misery and sickness and fright and sorrow,

and I don't know what all, got so loaded into them that none of them

were ever rightly their old selves after the siege. They all died but

three of us within a couple of years. One night a shell burst in front

of the hole and caved it in and stopped it up. It was lively times, for

a while, digging out. Some of us came near smothering. After that we

made two openings--ought to have thought of it at first.

'Mule meat. No, we only got down to that the last day or two. Of course

it was good; anything is good when you are starving.

This man had kept a diary during--six weeks? No, only the first six

days. The first day, eight close pages; the second, five; the third,

one--loosely written; the fourth, three or four lines; a line or two the

fifth and sixth days; seventh day, diary abandoned; life in terrific

Vicksburg having now become commonplace and matter of course.

The war history of Vicksburg has more about it to interest the general

reader than that of any other of the river-towns. It is full of variety,

full of incident, full of the picturesque. Vicksburg held out longer

than any other important river-town, and saw warfare in all its phases,

both land and water--the siege, the mine, the assault, the repulse, the

bombardment, sickness, captivity, famine.

The most beautiful of all the national cemeteries is here. Over the

great gateway is this inscription:--

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

TO 1865"

The grounds are nobly situated; being very high and commanding a wide

prospect of land and river. They are tastefully laid out in broad

terraces, with winding roads and paths; and there is profuse adornment

in the way of semi-tropical shrubs and flowers,' and in one part is a

piece of native wild-wood, left just as it grew, and, therefore, perfect

in its charm. Everything about this cemetery suggests the hand of the

national Government. The Government's work is always conspicuous for

excellence, solidity, thoroughness, neatness. The Government does its

work well in the first place, and then takes care of it.

By winding-roads--which were often cut to so great a depth between

perpendicular walls that they were mere roofless tunnels--we drove out a

mile or two and visited the monument which stands upon the scene of the

surrender of Vicksburg to General Grant by General Pemberton. Its metal

will preserve it from the hackings and chippings which so defaced its

predecessor, which was of marble; but the brick foundations are

crumbling, and it will tumble down by-and-bye. It overlooks a

picturesque region of wooded hills and ravines; and is not unpicturesque

itself, being well smothered in flowering weeds. The battered remnant of

the marble monument has been removed to the National Cemetery.

On the road, a quarter of a mile townward, an aged colored man showed

us, with pride, an unexploded bomb-shell which has lain in his yard

since the day it fell there during the siege.

'I was a-stannin' heah, an' de dog was a-stannin' heah; de dog he went

for de shell, gwine to pick a fuss wid it; but I didn't; I says, "Jes'

make you'seff at home heah; lay still whah you is, or bust up de place,

jes' as you's a mind to, but I's got business out in de woods, I has!"'

Vicksburg is a town of substantial business streets and pleasant

residences; it commands the commerce of the Yazoo and Sunflower Rivers;

is pushing railways in several directions, through rich agricultural

regions, and has a promising future of prosperity and importance.

Apparently, nearly all the river towns, big and little, have made up

their minds that they must look mainly to railroads for wealth and

upbuilding, henceforth. They are acting upon this idea. The signs are,

that the next twenty years will bring about some noteworthy changes in

the Valley, in the direction of increased population and wealth, and in

the intellectual advancement and the liberalizing of opinion which go

naturally with these. And yet, if one may judge by the past, the river

towns will manage to find and use a chance, here and there, to cripple

and retard their progress. They kept themselves back in the days of

steamboating supremacy, by a system of wharfage-dues so stupidly graded

as to prohibit what may be called small RETAIL traffic in freights and

passengers. Boats were charged such heavy wharfage that they could not

afford to land for one or two passengers or a light lot of freight.

Instead of encouraging the bringing of trade to their doors, the towns

diligently and effectively discouraged it. They could have had many

boats and low rates; but their policy rendered few boats and high rates

compulsory. It was a policy which extended--and extends--from New

Orleans to St. Paul.

We had a strong desire to make a trip up the Yazoo and the Sunflower--an

interesting region at any time, but additionally interesting at this

time, because up there the great inundation was still to be seen in

force--but we were nearly sure to have to wait a day or more for a New

Orleans boat on our return; so we were obliged to give up the project.

Here is a story which I picked up on board the boat that night. I insert

it in this place merely because it is a good story, not because it

belongs here--for it doesn't. It was told by a passenger--a college

professor--and was called to the surface in the course of a general

conversation which began with talk about horses, drifted into talk about

astronomy, then into talk about the lynching of the gamblers in

Vicksburg half a century ago, then into talk about dreams and

superstitions; and ended, after midnight, in a dispute over free trade

and protection.

Chapter 36 The Professor's Yarn

IT was in the early days. I was not a college professor then. I was a

humble-minded young land-surveyor, with the world before me--to survey,

in case anybody wanted it done. I had a contract to survey a route for

a great mining-ditch in California, and I was on my way thither, by sea

--a three or four weeks' voyage. There were a good many passengers, but

I had very little to say to them; reading and dreaming were my passions,

and I avoided conversation in order to indulge these appetites. There

were three professional gamblers on board--rough, repulsive fellows. I

never had any talk with them, yet I could not help seeing them with some

frequency, for they gambled in an upper-deck stateroom every day and

night, and in my promenades I often had glimpses of them through their

door, which stood a little ajar to let out the surplus tobacco smoke and

profanity. They were an evil and hateful presence, but I had to put up

with it, of course,

There was one other passenger who fell under my eye a good deal, for he

seemed determined to be friendly with me, and I could not have gotten

rid of him without running some chance of hurting his feelings, and I

was far from wishing to do that. Besides, there was something engaging

in his countrified simplicity and his beaming good-nature. The first

time I saw this Mr. John Backus, I guessed, from his clothes and his

looks, that he was a grazier or farmer from the backwoods of some

western State--doubtless Ohio--and afterward when he dropped into his

personal history and I discovered that he WAS a cattle-raiser from

interior Ohio, I was so pleased with my own penetration that I warmed

toward him for verifying my instinct.

He got to dropping alongside me every day, after breakfast, to help me

make my promenade; and so, in the course of time, his easy-working jaw

had told me everything about his business, his prospects, his family,

his relatives, his politics--in fact everything that concerned a Backus,

living or dead. And meantime I think he had managed to get out of me

everything I knew about my trade, my tribe, my purposes, my prospects,

and myself. He was a gentle and persuasive genius, and this thing

showed it; for I was not given to talking about my matters. I said

something about triangulation, once; the stately word pleased his ear;

he inquired what it meant; I explained; after that he quietly and

inoffensively ignored my name, and always called me Triangle.

What an enthusiast he was in cattle! At the bare name of a bull or a

cow, his eye would light and his eloquent tongue would turn itself

loose. As long as I would walk and listen, he would walk and talk; he

knew all breeds, he loved all breeds, he caressed them all with his

affectionate tongue. I tramped along in voiceless misery whilst the

cattle question was up; when I could endure it no longer, I used to

deftly insert a scientific topic into the conversation; then my eye

fired and his faded; my tongue fluttered, his stopped; life was a joy to

me, and a sadness to him.

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

'Triangle, would you mind coming down to my stateroom a minute, and have

a little talk on a certain matter?'

I went with him at once. Arrived there, he put his head out, glanced up

and down the saloon warily, then closed the door and locked it. He sat

down on the sofa, and he said--

'I'm a-going to make a little proposition to you, and if it strikes you

favorable, it'll be a middling good thing for both of us. You ain't

a-going out to Californy for fun, nuther am I--it's business, ain't that

so? Well, you can do me a good turn, and so can I you, if we see fit.

I've raked and scraped and saved, a considerable many years, and I've

got it all here.' He unlocked an old hair trunk, tumbled a chaos of

shabby clothes aside, and drew a short stout bag into view for a moment,

then buried it again and relocked the trunk. Dropping his voice to a

cautious low tone, he continued, 'She's all there--a round ten thousand

dollars in yellow-boys; now this is my little idea: What I don't know

about raising cattle, ain't worth knowing. There's mints of money in it,

in Californy. Well, I know, and you know, that all along a line that 's

being surveyed, there 's little dabs of land that they call "gores,"

that fall to the surveyor free gratis for nothing. All you've got to

do, on your side, is to survey in such a way that the "gores" will fall

on good fat land, then you turn 'em over to me, I stock 'em with cattle,

in rolls the cash, I plank out your share of the dollars regular, right

along, and--'

I was sorry to wither his blooming enthusiasm, but it could not be

helped. I interrupted, and said severely--

'I am not that kind of a surveyor. Let us change the subject, Mr.

Backus.'

It was pitiful to see his confusion and hear his awkward and shamefaced

apologies. I was as much distressed as he was--especially as he seemed

so far from having suspected that there was anything improper in his

proposition. So I hastened to console him and lead him on to forget his

mishap in a conversational orgy about cattle and butchery. We were lying

at Acapulco; and, as we went on deck, it happened luckily that the crew

were just beginning to hoist some beeves aboard in slings. Backus's

melancholy vanished instantly, and with it the memory of his late

mistake.

'Now only look at that!' cried he; 'My goodness, Triangle, what WOULD

they say to it in OHIO. Wouldn't their eyes bug out, to see 'em handled

like that?--wouldn't they, though?'

All the passengers were on deck to look--even the gamblers--and Backus

knew them all, and had afflicted them all with his pet topic. As I moved

away, I saw one of the gamblers approach and accost him; then another of

them; then the third. I halted; waited; watched; the conversation

continued between the four men; it grew earnest; Backus drew gradually

away; the gamblers followed, and kept at his elbow. I was uncomfortable.

However, as they passed me presently, I heard Backus say, with a tone of

persecuted annoyance--

'But it ain't any use, gentlemen; I tell you again, as I've told you a

half a dozen times before, I warn't raised to it, and I ain't a-going to

resk it.'

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

said to myself.

During the fortnight's run from Acapulco to San Francisco I several

times saw the gamblers talking earnestly with Backus, and once I threw

out a gentle warning to him. He chuckled comfortably and said--

'Oh, yes! they tag around after me considerable--want me to play a

little, just for amusement, they say--but laws-a-me, if my folks have

told me once to look out for that sort of live-stock, they've told me a

thousand times, I reckon.'

By-and-bye, in due course, we were approaching San Francisco. It was an

ugly black night, with a strong wind blowing, but there was not much

sea. I was on deck, alone. Toward ten I started below. A figure issued

from the gamblers' den, and disappeared in the darkness. I experienced a

shock, for I was sure it was Backus. I flew down the companion-way,

looked about for him, could not find him, then returned to the deck just

in time to catch a glimpse of him as he re-entered that confounded nest

of rascality. Had he yielded at last? I feared it. What had he gone

below for?--His bag of coin? Possibly. I drew near the door, full of

bodings. It was a-crack, and I glanced in and saw a sight that made me

bitterly wish I had given my attention to saving my poor cattle-friend,

instead of reading and dreaming my foolish time away. He was gambling.

Worse still, he was being plied with champagne, and was already showing

some effect from it. He praised the 'cider,' as he called it, and said

now that he had got a taste of it he almost believed he would drink it

if it was spirits, it was so good and so ahead of anything he had ever

run across before. Surreptitious smiles, at this, passed from one rascal

to another, and they filled all the glasses, and whilst Backus honestly

drained his to the bottom they pretended to do the same, but threw the

wine over their shoulders.

I could not bear the scene, so I wandered forward and tried to interest

myself in the sea and the voices of the wind. But no, my uneasy spirit

kept dragging me back at quarter-hour intervals; and always I saw Backus

drinking his wine--fairly and squarely, and the others throwing theirs

away. It was the painfullest night I ever spent.

The only hope I had was that we might reach our anchorage with speed--

that would break up the game. I helped the ship along all I could with

my prayers. At last we went booming through the Golden Gate, and my

pulses leaped for joy. I hurried back to that door and glanced in.

Alas, there was small room for hope--Backus's eyes were heavy and

bloodshot, his sweaty face was crimson, his speech maudlin and thick,

his body sawed drunkenly about with the weaving motion of the ship. He

drained another glass to the dregs, whilst the cards were being dealt.

He took his hand, glanced at it, and his dull eyes lit up for a moment.

The gamblers observed it, and showed their gratification by hardly

perceptible signs.

'How many cards?'

'None!' said Backus.

One villain--named Hank Wiley--discarded one card, the others three

each. The betting began. Heretofore the bets had been trifling--a

dollar or two; but Backus started off with an eagle now, Wiley hesitated

a moment, then 'saw it' and 'went ten dollars better.' The other two

threw up their hands.

Backus went twenty better. Wiley said--

'I see that, and go you a hundred better!' then smiled and reached for

the money.

'Let it alone,' said Backus, with drunken gravity.

'What! you mean to say you're going to cover it?'

'Cover it? Well, I reckon I am--and lay another hundred on top of it,

too.'

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

'Oh, that's your little game, is it? I see your raise, and raise it

five hundred!' said Wiley.

'Five hundred better.' said the foolish bull-driver, and pulled out the

amount and showered it on the pile. The three conspirators hardly tried

to conceal their exultation.

All diplomacy and pretense were dropped now, and the sharp exclamations

came thick and fast, and the yellow pyramid grew higher and higher. At

last ten thousand dollars lay in view. Wiley cast a bag of coin on the

table, and said with mocking gentleness--

'Five thousand dollars better, my friend from the rural districts--what

do you say NOW?'

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

'What have you got?'

'Four kings, you d--d fool!' and Wiley threw down his cards and

surrounded the stakes with his arms.

'Four ACES, you ass!' thundered Backus, covering his man with a cocked

revolver. 'I'M A PROFESSIONAL GAMBLER MYSELF, AND I'VE BEEN LAYING FOR

YOU DUFFERS ALL THIS VOYAGE!'

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

Well--well, it is a sad world. One of the three gamblers was Backus's

'pal.' It was he that dealt the fateful hands. According to an

understanding with the two victims, he was to have given Backus four

queens, but alas, he didn't.

A week later, I stumbled upon Backus--arrayed in the height of fashion--

in Montgomery Street. He said, cheerily, as we were parting--

'Ah, by-the-way, you needn't mind about those gores. I don't really

know anything about cattle, except what I was able to pick up in a

week's apprenticeship over in Jersey just before we sailed. My cattle-

culture and cattle-enthusiasm have served their turn--I shan't need them

any more.'

Next day we reluctantly parted from the 'Gold Dust' and her officers,

hoping to see that boat and all those officers again, some day. A thing

which the fates were to render tragically impossible!

Chapter 37 The End of the 'Gold Dust'

FOR, three months later, August 8, while I was writing one of these

foregoing chapters, the New York papers brought this telegram--

A TERRIBLE DISASTER.

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

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

'The steamer "Gold Dust" exploded her boilers at three o'clock to-day,

just after leaving Hickman. Forty-seven persons were scalded and

seventeen are missing. The boat was landed in the eddy just above the

town, and through the exertions of the citizens the cabin passengers,

officers, and part of the crew and deck passengers were taken ashore and

removed to the hotels and residences. Twenty-four of the injured were

lying in Holcomb's dry-goods store at one time, where they received

every attention before being removed to more comfortable places.'

A list of the names followed, whereby it appeared that of the seventeen

dead, one was the barkeeper; and among the forty-seven wounded, were the

captain, chief mate, second mate, and second and third clerks; also Mr.

Lem S. Gray, pilot, and several members of the crew.

In answer to a private telegram, we learned that none of these was

severely hurt, except Mr. Gray. Letters received afterward confirmed

this news, and said that Mr. Gray was improving and would get well.

Later letters spoke less hopefully of his case; and finally came one

announcing his death. A good man, a most companionable and manly man,

and worthy of a kindlier fate.

Chapter 38 The House Beautiful

WE took passage in a Cincinnati boat for New Orleans; or on a Cincinnati

boat--either is correct; the former is the eastern form of putting it,

the latter the western.

Mr. Dickens declined to agree that the Mississippi steamboats were

'magnificent,' or that they were 'floating palaces,'--terms which had

always been applied to them; terms which did not over-express the

admiration with which the people viewed them.

Mr. Dickens's position was unassailable, possibly; the people's position

was certainly unassailable. If Mr. Dickens was comparing these boats

with the crown jewels; or with the Taj, or with the Matterhorn; or with

some other priceless or wonderful thing which he had seen, they were not

magnificent--he was right. The people compared them with what they had

seen; and, thus measured, thus judged, the boats were magnificent--the

term was the correct one, it was not at all too strong. The people were

as right as was Mr. Dickens. The steamboats were finer than anything on

shore. Compared with superior dwelling-houses and first-class hotels in

the Valley, they were indubitably magnificent, they were 'palaces.' To a

few people living in New Orleans and St. Louis, they were not

magnificent, perhaps; not palaces; but to the great majority of those

populations, and to the entire populations spread over both banks

between Baton Rouge and St. Louis, they were palaces; they tallied with

the citizen's dream of what magnificence was, and satisfied it.

Every town and village along that vast stretch of double river-frontage

had a best dwelling, finest dwelling, mansion,--the home of its

wealthiest and most conspicuous citizen. It is easy to describe it:

large grassy yard, with paling fence painted white--in fair repair;

brick walk from gate to door; big, square, two-story 'frame' house,

painted white and porticoed like a Grecian temple--with this difference,

that the imposing fluted columns and Corinthian capitals were a pathetic

sham, being made of white pine, and painted; iron knocker; brass door

knob--discolored, for lack of polishing. Within, an uncarpeted hall, of

planed boards; opening out of it, a parlor, fifteen feet by fifteen--in

some instances five or ten feet larger; ingrain carpet; mahogany center-

table; lamp on it, with green-paper shade--standing on a gridiron, so to

speak, made of high-colored yarns, by the young ladies of the house, and

called a lamp-mat; several books, piled and disposed, with cast-iron

exactness, according to an inherited and unchangeable plan; among them,

Tupper, much penciled; also, 'Friendship's Offering,' and 'Affection's

Wreath,' with their sappy inanities illustrated in die-away mezzotints;

also, Ossian; 'Alonzo and Melissa:' maybe 'Ivanhoe:' also 'Album,' full

of original 'poetry' of the Thou-hast-wounded-the-spirit-that-loved-thee

breed; two or three goody-goody works--'Shepherd of Salisbury Plain,'

etc.; current number of the chaste and innocuous Godey's 'Lady's Book,'

with painted fashion-plate of wax-figure women with mouths all alike--

lips and eyelids the same size--each five-foot woman with a two-inch

wedge sticking from under her dress and letting-on to be half of her

foot. Polished air-tight stove (new and deadly invention), with pipe

passing through a board which closes up the discarded good old

fireplace. On each end of the wooden mantel, over the fireplace, a

large basket of peaches and other fruits, natural size, all done in

plaster, rudely, or in wax, and painted to resemble the originals--which

they don't. Over middle of mantel, engraving--Washington Crossing the

Delaware; on the wall by the door, copy of it done in thunder-and-

lightning crewels by one of the young ladies--work of art which would

have made Washington hesitate about crossing, if he could have foreseen

what advantage was going to be taken of it. Piano--kettle in disguise--

with music, bound and unbound, piled on it, and on a stand near by:

Battle of Prague; Bird Waltz; Arkansas Traveler; Rosin the Bow;

Marseilles Hymn; On a Lone Barren Isle (St. Helena); The Last Link is

Broken; She wore a Wreath of Roses the Night when last we met; Go,

forget me, Why should Sorrow o'er that Brow a Shadow fling; Hours there

were to Memory Dearer; Long, Long Ago; Days of Absence; A Life on the

Ocean Wave, a Home on the Rolling Deep; Bird at Sea; and spread open on

the rack, where the plaintive singer has left it, RO-holl on, silver

MOO-hoon, guide the TRAV-el-lerr his WAY, etc. Tilted pensively against

the piano, a guitar--guitar capable of playing the Spanish Fandango by

itself, if you give it a start. Frantic work of art on the wall--pious

motto, done on the premises, sometimes in colored yarns, sometimes in

faded grasses: progenitor of the 'God Bless Our Home' of modern

commerce. Framed in black moldings on the wall, other works of arts,

conceived and committed on the premises, by the young ladies; being grim

black-and-white crayons; landscapes, mostly: lake, solitary sail-boat,

petrified clouds, pre-geological trees on shore, anthracite precipice;

name of criminal conspicuous in the corner. Lithograph, Napoleon

Crossing the Alps. Lithograph, The Grave at St. Helena. Steel-plates,

Trumbull's Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Sally from Gibraltar. Copper-

plates, Moses Smiting the Rock, and Return of the Prodigal Son. In big

gilt frame, slander of the family in oil: papa holding a book

('Constitution of the United States'); guitar leaning against mamma,

blue ribbons fluttering from its neck; the young ladies, as children, in

slippers and scalloped pantelettes, one embracing toy horse, the other

beguiling kitten with ball of yarn, and both simpering up at mamma, who

simpers back. These persons all fresh, raw, and red--apparently skinned.

Opposite, in gilt frame, grandpa and grandma, at thirty and twenty-two,

stiff, old-fashioned, high-collared, puff-sleeved, glaring pallidly out

from a background of solid Egyptian night. Under a glass French clock

dome, large bouquet of stiff flowers done in corpsy-white wax.

Pyramidal what-not in the corner, the shelves occupied chiefly with

bric-a-brac of the period, disposed with an eye to best effect: shell,

with the Lord's Prayer carved on it; another shell--of the long-oval

sort, narrow, straight orifice, three inches long, running from end to

end--portrait of Washington carved on it; not well done; the shell had

Washington's mouth, originally--artist should have built to that. These

two are memorials of the long-ago bridal trip to New Orleans and the

French Market. Other bric-a-brac: Californian 'specimens'--quartz, with

gold wart adhering; old Guinea-gold locket, with circlet of ancestral

hair in it; Indian arrow-heads, of flint; pair of bead moccasins, from

uncle who crossed the Plains; three 'alum' baskets of various colors--

being skeleton-frame of wire, clothed-on with cubes of crystallized alum

in the rock-candy style--works of art which were achieved by the young

ladies; their doubles and duplicates to be found upon all what-nots in

the land; convention of desiccated bugs and butterflies pinned to a

card; painted toy-dog, seated upon bellows-attachment--drops its under

jaw and squeaks when pressed upon; sugar-candy rabbit--limbs and

features merged together, not strongly defined; pewter presidential-

campaign medal; miniature card-board wood-sawyer, to be attached to the

stove-pipe and operated by the heat; small Napoleon, done in wax;

spread-open daguerreotypes of dim children, parents, cousins, aunts, and

friends, in all attitudes but customary ones; no templed portico at

back, and manufactured landscape stretching away in the distance--that

came in later, with the photograph; all these vague figures lavishly

chained and ringed--metal indicated and secured from doubt by stripes

and splashes of vivid gold bronze; all of them too much combed, too much

fixed up; and all of them uncomfortable in inflexible Sunday-clothes of

a pattern which the spectator cannot realize could ever have been in

fashion; husband and wife generally grouped together--husband sitting,

wife standing, with hand on his shoulder--and both preserving, all these

fading years, some traceable effect of the daguerreotypist's brisk 'Now

smile, if you please!' Bracketed over what-not--place of special

sacredness--an outrage in water-color, done by the young niece that came

on a visit long ago, and died. Pity, too; for she might have repented of

this in time. Horse-hair chairs, horse-hair sofa which keeps sliding

from under you. Window shades, of oil stuff, with milk-maids and ruined

castles stenciled on them in fierce colors. Lambrequins dependent from

gaudy boxings of beaten tin, gilded. Bedrooms with rag carpets;

bedsteads of the 'corded' sort, with a sag in the middle, the cords

needing tightening; snuffy feather-bed--not aired often enough; cane-

seat chairs, splint-bottomed rocker; looking-glass on wall, school-slate

size, veneered frame; inherited bureau; wash-bowl and pitcher, possibly

--but not certainly; brass candlestick, tallow candle, snuffers. Nothing

else in the room. Not a bathroom in the house; and no visitor likely to

come along who has ever seen one.

That was the residence of the principal citizen, all the way from the

suburbs of New Orleans to the edge of St. Louis. When he stepped aboard

a big fine steamboat, he entered a new and marvelous world: chimney-tops

cut to counterfeit a spraying crown of plumes--and maybe painted red;

pilot-house, hurricane deck, boiler-deck guards, all garnished with

white wooden filigree work of fanciful patterns; gilt acorns topping the

derricks; gilt deer-horns over the big bell; gaudy symbolical picture on

the paddle-box, possibly; big roomy boiler-deck, painted blue, and

furnished with Windsor armchairs; inside, a far-receding snow-white

'cabin;' porcelain knob and oil-picture on every stateroom door; curving

patterns of filigree-work touched up with gilding, stretching overhead

all down the converging vista; big chandeliers every little way, each an

April shower of glittering glass-drops; lovely rainbow-light falling

everywhere from the colored glazing of the skylights; the whole a long-

drawn, resplendent tunnel, a bewildering and soul-satisfying spectacle!

In the ladies' cabin a pink and white Wilton carpet, as soft as mush,

and glorified with a ravishing pattern of gigantic flowers. Then the

Bridal Chamber--the animal that invented that idea was still alive and

unhanged, at that day--Bridal Chamber whose pretentious flummery was

necessarily overawing to the now tottering intellect of that hosannahing

citizen. Every state-room had its couple of cozy clean bunks, and

perhaps a looking-glass and a snug closet; and sometimes there was even

a washbowl and pitcher, and part of a towel which could be told from

mosquito netting by an expert--though generally these things were

absent, and the shirt-sleeved passengers cleansed themselves at a long

row of stationary bowls in the barber shop, where were also public

towels, public combs, and public soap.

Take the steamboat which I have just described, and you have her in her

highest and finest, and most pleasing, and comfortable, and satisfactory

estate. Now cake her over with a layer of ancient and obdurate dirt,

and you have the Cincinnati steamer awhile ago referred to. Not all

over--only inside; for she was ably officered in all departments except

the steward's.

But wash that boat and repaint her, and she would be about the

counterpart of the most complimented boat of the old flush times: for

the steamboat architecture of the West has undergone no change; neither

has steamboat furniture and ornamentation undergone any.

Chapter 39 Manufactures and Miscreants

WHERE the river, in the Vicksburg region, used to be corkscrewed, it is

now comparatively straight--made so by cut-off; a former distance of

seventy miles is reduced to thirty-five. It is a change which threw

Vicksburg's neighbor, Delta, Louisiana, out into the country and ended

its career as a river town. Its whole river-frontage is now occupied by

a vast sand-bar, thickly covered with young trees--a growth which will

magnify itself into a dense forest by-and-bye, and completely hide the

exiled town.

In due time we passed Grand Gulf and Rodney, of war fame, and reached

Natchez, the last of the beautiful hill-cities--for Baton Rouge, yet to

come, is not on a hill, but only on high ground. Famous Natchez-under-

the-hill has not changed notably in twenty years; in outward aspect--

judging by the descriptions of the ancient procession of foreign

tourists--it has not changed in sixty; for it is still small,

straggling, and shabby. It had a desperate reputation, morally, in the

old keel-boating and early steamboating times--plenty of drinking,

carousing, fisticuffing, and killing there, among the riff-raff of the

river, in those days. But Natchez-on-top-of-the-hill is attractive; has

always been attractive. Even Mrs. Trollope (1827) had to confess its

charms:

'At one or two points the wearisome level line is relieved by bluffs, as

they call the short intervals of high ground. The town of Natchez is

beautifully situated on one of those high spots. The contrast that its

bright green hill forms with the dismal line of black forest that

stretches on every side, the abundant growth of the pawpaw, palmetto and

orange, the copious variety of sweet-scented flowers that flourish

there, all make it appear like an oasis in the desert. Natchez is the

furthest point to the north at which oranges ripen in the open air, or

endure the winter without shelter. With the exception of this sweet

spot, I thought all the little towns and villages we passed wretched-

looking in the extreme.'

Natchez, like her near and far river neighbors, has railways now, and is

adding to them--pushing them hither and thither into all rich outlying

regions that are naturally tributary to her. And like Vicksburg and New

Orleans, she has her ice-factory: she makes thirty tons of ice a day.

In Vicksburg and Natchez, in my time, ice was jewelry; none but the rich

could wear it. But anybody and everybody can have it now. I visited one

of the ice-factories in New Orleans, to see what the polar regions might

look like when lugged into the edge of the tropics. But there was

nothing striking in the aspect of the place. It was merely a spacious

house, with some innocent steam machinery in one end of it and some big

porcelain pipes running here and there. No, not porcelain--they merely

seemed to be; they were iron, but the ammonia which was being breathed

through them had coated them to the thickness of your hand with solid

milk-white ice. It ought to have melted; for one did not require winter

clothing in that atmosphere: but it did not melt; the inside of the

pipe was too cold.

Sunk into the floor were numberless tin boxes, a foot square and two

feet long, and open at the top end. These were full of clear water; and

around each box, salt and other proper stuff was packed; also, the

ammonia gases were applied to the water in some way which will always

remain a secret to me, because I was not able to understand the process.

While the water in the boxes gradually froze, men gave it a stir or two

with a stick occasionally--to liberate the air-bubbles, I think. Other

men were continually lifting out boxes whose contents had become hard

frozen. They gave the box a single dip into a vat of boiling water, to

melt the block of ice free from its tin coffin, then they shot the block

out upon a platform car, and it was ready for market. These big blocks

were hard, solid, and crystal-clear. In certain of them, big bouquets of

fresh and brilliant tropical flowers had been frozen-in; in others,

beautiful silken-clad French dolls, and other pretty objects. These

blocks were to be set on end in a platter, in the center of dinner-

tables, to cool the tropical air; and also to be ornamental, for the

flowers and things imprisoned in them could be seen as through plate

glass. I was told that this factory could retail its ice, by wagon,

throughout New Orleans, in the humblest dwelling-house quantities, at

six or seven dollars a ton, and make a sufficient profit. This being the

case, there is business for ice-factories in the North; for we get ice

on no such terms there, if one take less than three hundred and fifty

pounds at a delivery.

The Rosalie Yarn Mill, of Natchez, has a capacity of 6,000 spindles and

160 looms, and employs 100 hands. The Natchez Cotton Mills Company

began operations four years ago in a two-story building of 50 x 190

feet, with 4,000 spindles and 128 looms; capital $105,000, all

subscribed in the town. Two years later, the same stockholders increased

their capital to $225,000; added a third story to the mill, increased

its length to 317 feet; added machinery to increase the capacity to

10,300 spindles and 304 looms. The company now employ 250 operatives,

many of whom are citizens of Natchez. 'The mill works 5,000 bales of

cotton annually and manufactures the best standard quality of brown

shirtings and sheetings and drills, turning out 5,000,000 yards of these

goods per year.'{footnote [New Orleans Times-Democrat, 26 Aug, 1882.]} A

close corporation--stock held at $5,000 per share, but none in the

market.

The changes in the Mississippi River are great and strange, yet were to

be expected; but I was not expecting to live to see Natchez and these

other river towns become manufacturing strongholds and railway centers.

Speaking of manufactures reminds me of a talk upon that topic which I

heard--which I overheard--on board the Cincinnati boat. I awoke out of a

fretted sleep, with a dull confusion of voices in my ears. I listened--

two men were talking; subject, apparently, the great inundation. I

looked out through the open transom. The two men were eating a late

breakfast; sitting opposite each other; nobody else around. They closed

up the inundation with a few words--having used it, evidently, as a mere

ice-breaker and acquaintanceship-breeder--then they dropped into

business. It soon transpired that they were drummers--one belonging in

Cincinnati, the other in New Orleans. Brisk men, energetic of movement

and speech; the dollar their god, how to get it their religion.

'Now as to this article,' said Cincinnati, slashing into the ostensible

butter and holding forward a slab of it on his knife-blade, 'it's from

our house; look at it--smell of it--taste it. Put any test on it you

want to. Take your own time--no hurry--make it thorough. There now--

what do you say? butter, ain't it. Not by a thundering sight--it's

oleomargarine! Yes, sir, that's what it is--oleomargarine. You can't

tell it from butter; by George, an EXPERT can't. It's from our house.

We supply most of the boats in the West; there's hardly a pound of

butter on one of them. We are crawling right along--JUMPING right along

is the word. We are going to have that entire trade. Yes, and the hotel

trade, too. You are going to see the day, pretty soon, when you can't

find an ounce of butter to bless yourself with, in any hotel in the

Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, outside of the biggest cities. Why, we are

turning out oleomargarine NOW by the thousands of tons. And we can sell

it so dirt-cheap that the whole country has GOT to take it--can't get

around it you see. Butter don't stand any show--there ain't any chance

for competition. Butter's had its DAY--and from this out, butter goes to

the wall. There's more money in oleomargarine than--why, you can't

imagine the business we do. I've stopped in every town from Cincinnati

to Natchez; and I've sent home big orders from every one of them.'

And so-forth and so-on, for ten minutes longer, in the same fervid

strain. Then New Orleans piped up and said--

Yes, it's a first-rate imitation, that's a certainty; but it ain't the

only one around that's first-rate. For instance, they make olive-oil out

of cotton-seed oil, nowadays, so that you can't tell them apart.'

'Yes, that's so,' responded Cincinnati, 'and it was a tip-top business

for a while. They sent it over and brought it back from France and

Italy, with the United States custom-house mark on it to indorse it for

genuine, and there was no end of cash in it; but France and Italy broke

up the game--of course they naturally would. Cracked on such a rattling

impost that cotton-seed olive-oil couldn't stand the raise; had to hang

up and quit.'

'Oh, it DID, did it? You wait here a minute.'

Goes to his state-room, brings back a couple of long bottles, and takes

out the corks--says:

'There now, smell them, taste them, examine the bottles, inspect the

labels. One of 'm's from Europe, the other's never been out of this

country. One's European olive-oil, the other's American cotton-seed

olive-oil. Tell 'm apart? 'Course you can't. Nobody can. People that

want to, can go to the expense and trouble of shipping their oils to

Europe and back--it's their privilege; but our firm knows a trick worth

six of that. We turn out the whole thing--clean from the word go--in our

factory in New Orleans: labels, bottles, oil, everything. Well, no,

not labels: been buying them abroad--get them dirt-cheap there. You

see, there's just one little wee speck, essence, or whatever it is, in a

gallon of cotton-seed oil, that give it a smell, or a flavor, or

something--get that out, and you're all right--perfectly easy then to

turn the oil into any kind of oil you want to, and there ain't anybody

that can detect the true from the false. Well, we know how to get that

one little particle out--and we're the only firm that does. And we turn

out an olive-oil that is just simply perfect--undetectable! We are doing

a ripping trade, too--as I could easily show you by my order-book for

this trip. Maybe you'll butter everybody's bread pretty soon, but we'll

cotton-seed his salad for him from the Gulf to Canada, and that's a

dead-certain thing.'

Cincinnati glowed and flashed with admiration. The two scoundrels

exchanged business-cards, and rose. As they left the table, Cincinnati

said--

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

that?'

I did not catch the answer.

We passed Port Hudson, scene of two of the most terrific episodes of the

war--the night-battle there between Farragut's fleet and the Confederate

land batteries, April 14th, 1863; and the memorable land battle, two

months later, which lasted eight hours--eight hours of exceptionally

fierce and stubborn fighting--and ended, finally, in the repulse of the

Union forces with great slaughter.

Chapter 40 Castles and Culture

BATON ROUGE was clothed in flowers, like a bride--no, much more so; like

a greenhouse. For we were in the absolute South now--no modifications,

no compromises, no half-way measures. The magnolia-trees in the Capitol

grounds were lovely and fragrant, with their dense rich foliage and huge

snow-ball blossoms. The scent of the flower is very sweet, but you want

distance on it, because it is so powerful. They are not good bedroom

blossoms--they might suffocate one in his sleep. We were certainly in

the South at last; for here the sugar region begins, and the

plantations--vast green levels, with sugar-mill and negro quarters

clustered together in the middle distance--were in view. And there was

a tropical sun overhead and a tropical swelter in the air.

And at this point, also, begins the pilot's paradise: a wide river hence

to New Orleans, abundance of water from shore to shore, and no bars,

snags, sawyers, or wrecks in his road.

Sir Walter Scott is probably responsible for the Capitol building; for

it is not conceivable that this little sham castle would ever have been

built if he had not run the people mad, a couple of generations ago,

with his medieval romances. The South has not yet recovered from the

debilitating influence of his books. Admiration of his fantastic heroes

and their grotesque 'chivalry' doings and romantic juvenilities still

survives here, in an atmosphere in which is already perceptible the

wholesome and practical nineteenth-century smell of cotton-factories and

locomotives; and traces of its inflated language and other windy

humbuggeries survive along with it. It is pathetic enough, that a

whitewashed castle, with turrets and things--materials all ungenuine

within and without, pretending to be what they are not--should ever have

been built in this otherwise honorable place; but it is much more

pathetic to see this architectural falsehood undergoing restoration and

perpetuation in our day, when it would have been so easy to let dynamite

finish what a charitable fire began, and then devote this restoration-

money to the building of something genuine.

Baton Rouge has no patent on imitation castles, however, and no monopoly

of them. Here is a picture from the advertisement of the 'Female

Institute' of Columbia; Tennessee. The following remark is from the

same advertisement--

'The Institute building has long been famed as a model of striking and

beautiful architecture. Visitors are charmed with its resemblance to

the old castles of song and story, with its towers, turreted walls, and

ivy-mantled porches.'

Keeping school in a castle is a romantic thing; as romantic as keeping

hotel in a castle.

By itself the imitation castle is doubtless harmless, and well enough;

but as a symbol and breeder and sustainer of maudlin Middle-Age

romanticism here in the midst of the plainest and sturdiest and

infinitely greatest and worthiest of all the centuries the world has

seen, it is necessarily a hurtful thing and a mistake.

Here is an extract from the prospectus of a Kentucky 'Female College.'

Female college sounds well enough; but since the phrasing it in that

unjustifiable way was done purely in the interest of brevity, it seems

to me that she-college would have been still better--because shorter,

and means the same thing: that is, if either phrase means anything at

all--

'The president is southern by birth, by rearing, by education, and by

sentiment; the teachers are all southern in sentiment, and with the

exception of those born in Europe were born and raised in the south.

Believing the southern to be the highest type of civilization this

continent has seen, the young ladies are trained according to the

southern ideas of delicacy, refinement, womanhood, religion, and

propriety; hence we offer a first-class female college for the south and

solicit southern patronage.'

{footnote (long one) [Illustrations of it thoughtlessly omitted by the

advertiser:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn., October 19.--This morning a few minutes after ten

o'clock, General Joseph A. Mabry, Thomas O'Connor, and Joseph A. Mabry,

Jr., were killed in a shooting affray. The difficulty began yesterday

afternoon by General Mabry attacking Major O'Connor and threatening to

kill him. This was at the fair grounds, and O'Connor told Mabry that it

was not the place to settle their difficulties. Mabry then told O'Connor

he should not live. It seems that Mabry was armed and O'Connor was not.

The cause of the difficulty was an old feud about the transfer of some

property from Mabry to O'Connor. Later in the afternoon Mabry sent word

to O'Connor that he would kill him on sight. This morning Major O'Connor

was standing in the door of the Mechanics' National Bank, of which he

was president. General Mabry and another gentleman walked down Gay

Street on the opposite side from the bank. O'Connor stepped into the

bank, got a shot gun, took deliberate aim at General Mabry and fired.

Mabry fell dead, being shot in the left side. As he fell O'Connor fired

again, the shot taking effect in Mabry's thigh. O'Connor then reached

into the bank and got another shot gun. About this time Joseph A. Mabry,

Jr., son of General Mabry, came rushing down the street, unseen by

O'Connor until within forty feet, when the young man fired a pistol, the

shot taking effect in O'Connor's right breast, passing through the body

near the heart. The instant Mabry shot, O'Connor turned and fired, the

load taking effect in young Mabry's right breast and side. Mabry fell

pierced with twenty buckshot, and almost instantly O'Connor fell dead

without a struggle. Mabry tried to rise, but fell back dead. The whole

tragedy occurred within two minutes, and neither of the three spoke

after he was shot. General Mabry had about thirty buckshot in his body.

A bystander was painfully wounded in the thigh with a buckshot, and

another was wounded in the arm. Four other men had their clothing

pierced by buckshot. The affair caused great excitement, and Gay Street

was thronged with thousands of people. General Mabry and his son Joe

were acquitted only a few days ago of the murder of Moses Lusby and Don

Lusby, father and son, whom they killed a few weeks ago. Will Mabry was

killed by Don Lusby last Christmas. Major Thomas O'Connor was President

of the Mechanics' National Bank here, and was the wealthiest man in the

State.--ASSOCIATED PRESS TELEGRAM.

One day last month, Professor Sharpe, of the Somerville, Tenn., Female

College, 'a quiet and gentlemanly man,' was told that his brother-in-

law, a Captain Burton, had threatened to kill him. Burton, t seems, had

already killed one man and driven his knife into another. The Professor

armed himself with a double-barreled shot gun, started out in search of

his brother-in-law, found him playing billiards in a saloon, and blew

his brains out. The 'Memphis Avalanche' reports that the Professor's

course met with pretty general approval in the community; knowing that

the law was powerless, in the actual condition of public sentiment, to

protect him, he protected himself.

About the same time, two young men in North Carolina quarreled about a

girl, and 'hostile messages' were exchanged. Friends tried to reconcile

them, but had their labor for their pains. On the 24th the young men met

in the public highway. One of them had a heavy club in his hand, the

other an ax. The man with the club fought desperately for his life, but

it was a hopeless fight from the first. A well-directed blow sent his

club whirling out of his grasp, and the next moment he was a dead man.

About the same time, two 'highly connected' young Virginians, clerks in

a hardware store at Charlottesville, while 'skylarking,' came to blows.

Peter Dick threw pepper in Charles Roads's eyes; Roads demanded an

apology; Dick refused to give it, and it was agreed that a duel was

inevitable, but a difficulty arose; the parties had no pistols, and it

was too late at night to procure them. One of them suggested that

butcher-knives would answer the purpose, and the other accepted the

suggestion; the result was that Roads fell to the floor with a gash in

his abdomen that may or may not prove fatal. If Dick has been arrested,

the news has not reached us. He 'expressed deep regret,' and we are told

by a Staunton correspondent of the PHILADELPHIA PRESS that 'every effort

has been made to hush the matter up.'--EXTRACTS FROM THE PUBLIC

JOURNALS.]}

What, warder, ho! the man that can blow so complacent a blast as that,

probably blows it from a castle.

From Baton Rouge to New Orleans, the great sugar plantations border both

sides of the river all the way, and stretch their league-wide levels

back to the dim forest-walls of bearded cypress in the rear. Shores

lonely no longer. Plenty of dwellings all the way, on both banks--

standing so close together, for long distances, that the broad river

lying between the two rows, becomes a sort of spacious street. A most

home-like and happy-looking region. And now and then you see a pillared

and porticoed great manor-house, embowered in trees. Here is testimony

of one or two of the procession of foreign tourists that filed along

here half a century ago. Mrs. Trollope says--

'The unbroken flatness of the banks of the Mississippi continued

unvaried for many miles above New Orleans; but the graceful and

luxuriant palmetto, the dark and noble ilex, and the bright orange, were

everywhere to be seen, and it was many days before we were weary of

looking at them.'

Captain Basil Hall--

'The district of country which lies adjacent to the Mississippi, in the

lower parts of Louisiana, is everywhere thickly peopled by sugar

planters, whose showy houses, gay piazzas, trig gardens, and numerous

slave-villages, all clean and neat, gave an exceedingly thriving air to

the river scenery.

All the procession paint the attractive picture in the same way. The

descriptions of fifty years ago do not need to have a word changed in

order to exactly describe the same region as it appears to-day--except

as to the 'trigness' of the houses. The whitewash is gone from the negro

cabins now; and many, possibly most, of the big mansions, once so

shining white, have worn out their paint and have a decayed, neglected

look. It is the blight of the war. Twenty-one years ago everything was

trim and trig and bright along the 'coast,' just as it had been in 1827,

as described by those tourists.

Unfortunate tourists! People humbugged them with stupid and silly lies,

and then laughed at them for believing and printing the same. They told

Mrs. Trollope that the alligators--or crocodiles, as she calls them--

were terrible creatures; and backed up the statement with a blood-

curdling account of how one of these slandered reptiles crept into a

squatter cabin one night, and ate up a woman and five children. The

woman, by herself, would have satisfied any ordinarily-impossible

alligator; but no, these liars must make him gorge the five children

besides. One would not imagine that jokers of this robust breed would be

sensitive--but they were. It is difficult, at this day, to understand,

and impossible to justify, the reception which the book of the grave,

honest, intelligent, gentle, manly, charitable, well-meaning Capt. Basil

Hall got.

Chapter 41 The Metropolis of the South

THE approaches to New Orleans were familiar; general aspects were

unchanged. When one goes flying through London along a railway propped

in the air on tall arches, he may inspect miles of upper bedrooms

through the open windows, but the lower half of the houses is under his

level and out of sight. Similarly, in high-river stage, in the New

Orleans region, the water is up to the top of the enclosing levee-rim,

the flat country behind it lies low--representing the bottom of a dish--

and as the boat swims along, high on the flood, one looks down upon the

houses and into the upper windows. There is nothing but that frail

breastwork of earth between the people and destruction.