In that early day, to be a pilot was to be "greater than a king." The
Mississippi River pilot was a law unto himself--there was none above him.
His direction of the boat was absolute; he could start or lay up when he
chose; he could pass a landing regardless of business there, consulting
nobody, not even the captain; he could take the boat into what seemed
certain destruction, if he had that mind, and the captain was obliged to
stand by, helpless and silent, for the law was with the pilot in
everything.
Furthermore, the pilot was a gentleman. His work was clean and
physically light. It ended the instant the boat was tied to the landing,
and did not begin again until it was ready to back into the stream.
Also, for those days his salary was princely--the Vice-President of the
United States did not receive more. As for prestige, the Mississippi
pilot, perched high in his glass inclosure, fashionably dressed, and
commanding all below him, was the most conspicuous and showy, the most
observed and envied creature in the world. No wonder Sam Clemens, with
his love of the river and his boyish fondness for honors, should aspire
to that stately rank. Even at twenty-one he was still just a boy--as,
indeed, he was till his death--and we may imagine how elated he was,
starting up the great river as a real apprentice pilot, who in a year or
two would stand at the wheel, as his chief was now standing, a monarch
with a splendid income and all the great river packed away in his head.
In that last item lay the trouble. In the Mississippi book he tells of
it in a way that no one may hope to equal, and if the details are not
exact, the truth is there--at least in substance.
For a distance above New Orleans Mr. Bixby had volunteered information
about the river, naming the points and crossings, in what seemed a casual
way, all through his watch of four hours. Their next watch began in the
middle of the night, and Mark Twain tells how surprised and disgusted he
was to learn that pilots must get up in the night to run their boats, and
his amazement to find Mr. Bixby plunging into the blackness ahead as if
it had been daylight. Very likely this is mainly fiction, but hardly the
following:
Presently he turned to me and said: "What's the name of the first
point above New Orleans?"
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I
didn't know.
"Don't know!"
His manner jolted me. I was down at the foot again, in a moment.
But I had to say just what I had said before.
"Well, you're a smart one," said Mr. Bixby. "What's the name of the
next point?"
Once more I didn't know.
"Well, this beats anything! Tell me the name of any point or place
I told you."