A SOUTHERN RIVER BOAT RACE.
"Hurry, my boy! Pack up your traps and get ready for the boat," cried
Styles Staple, bursting into my room in his usual sudden fashion the
day we got the news from Virginia. "All's fixed. The colonel, you and I
are to have a trip of a week, stop at Mobile and then run down t'
Orleans!"
So by sundown we were quietly smoking our cigars on the topmost deck of
the "Southern Republic."
Nowhere in the world can be found just such boats as those that
navigate our south-western rivers. Great three or four-storied
constructions, built upon mere flats of the lightest possible draught,
with length and breadth of beam sufficient to allow storage room for an
immense number of cotton bales and barrels upon the lowest deck; with
their furnaces, boilers and machinery all above the water line, they
look like up-country hotels that, having got out of their element,
contemplate a down-trip for the benefit of their health--or _cuisine_.
The "Southern Republic" was a new boat, built after the most approved
plan, on a scale of size and magnificence unequaled on the river.
Sitting flat and square upon the water, her four decks rising one above
the other--with the thousand doors and windows of her state-rooms
seeming to peer like eyes over the balconies around them--she seemed
more like some fabled marine monster than a vessel meant for speed and
comfort. Her length was immense, and her draught necessarily very
light--not four feet when full loaded; for the Alabama is subject to
many vagaries and what was a clear channel yesterday may be only a
two-foot shoal to-day. Of course, with solidity and strength sacrificed
to this extreme lightness, when the powerful engines are put to any
strain, the high, thin fabric thrills from stem to stern with their
every puff, like a huge card-house.
The speed of a first-class high-pressure boat is very great in the
longer "reaches;" but, the Alabama is a most tortuous stream. Often you
stand by the pilot-house and see, right under the quarter, a gleaming
streak of water across a neck of land over which you might toss a
stone; and yet you may steam on miles around the point that juts ahead,
before you get into it.
The "Southern Republic," from her immense size and unusually handsome
equipment, was a novelty even to the river people; and each afternoon
of her starting, crowds came aboard to bid farewell to friends and roam
over the vessel, or collected on the bluffs above to see her swing out
to the shrill notes of her "calliope," the best and least discordant on
the river. A few evenings before we left, a large party had collected
in honor of General Earl Van Dorn. He had recently resigned; and the
commission as colonel of the only regiment of regular cavalry in the
Confederacy was tendered him. Now, on the eve of departure for his
well-known expedition to Texas--then considered a momentous and
desperate one--numbers of fair women thronged the bluffs to catch a
glimpse of the hero of the hour, while friends gathered round to grasp
the hand, than which no firmer ever drew blade!
Few men had started in the war with brighter auspices and more ardent
well-wishings--none could have had a sadder ending! I remember well the
last sight I ever had of his neat but powerfully-knit figure, as he
stood with one hand resting on the rail of the upper deck and the other
raising his broad sombrero over the clear, sharp features, with the
peaked moustache and beard of the _cuirassier_. A brilliant and
handsome staff surrounded him; from the bluffs, the ladies waved their
handkerchiefs and the men their hats; the wild notes of the calliope
echoed back the "Marseillaise;" but in memory's photograph of the
scene, his figure alone--the proud swell of the thin nostril and the
deep, smothered flame in the cold gray eye--stands out clear and sharp.
We are aboard the "Southern Republic;" the last bell has sounded, the
last belated trunk has been trundled over the plank; and we are off,
the calliope screaming "Dixie" like ten thousand devils, the crowds on
the bank waving us _bon voyage_!
The main saloon of the boat was a spacious apartment, a hundred feet
long by thirty in breadth, gorgeously decorated with modern paint and
brilliantly lighted; the galleries leading to the state-rooms rising
tier upon tier entirely around it, while above, a skylight of tinted
glass shed a soft, warm light.
There were offices, card-rooms, bar-rooms aboard all these boats; and
as the down-trip occupies from forty-eight to one hundred
hours--according to the stage of the river and the luck in running
aground, a performance to be expected once in each trip--we become
quite a mutual amusement community by the time it is over.
This trip the boat was very crowded, and at supper the effect of the
line of small tables, filled with officers in uniform, ladies
tastefully dressed and a sprinkling of homespun coats--all reflected in
the long mirror--was very bright and gay. After meals, there is
generally a promenade on the upper deck, where people talk, smoke,
inspect each other and flirt. They then adjourn to state-room, saloon
or card-room, to lounge or read to kill time; for the Alabama is
anything but a picturesque stream, with its low, marshy banks only
varied by occasional "cotton slides" and "negro quarters."
This night was splendidly clear, the moon bright as day, and Staple and
I with our cigars staid on deck to scrape acquaintance with the pilot
and the small, seedy Frenchman who officiated at the calliope. He was
an original in his way--"the Professor"--his head like a bullet,
garnished with hair of the most wiry blackness, cut close as the
scissors could hold it, looking like the most uncompromising porcupine.
Of course, he was a political refugee.
"_Dixie! Aire nationale! pas bonne chose!_" he exclaimed, seating
himself at his instrument and twirling a huge moustache. "_Voila le
Marseillaise!_ Zat make hymn national for you!" And he made the whistle
roar and shriek in a way to have sent the red caps into the air a
hundred miles away.
"Grand! Splendid!" roared Styles above the steam. "Why, Professor,
you're a genius. Come and take some brandy."
The professor banged the lid of his instrument, led the way instanter
down to our state-room; and, once there, did take something; then
something else and, finally, something more, till he got very
thick-tongued and enthusiastic.
"Grand aire of ze Liberte!" he cried at last, mounting again to his
perch by the smoke-stack. "Song compose by me for one grand man--ze Van
Dorn. I make zees--me, myself--and dedicate to heem!" And he banged at
the keys till he tortured the steam into the Liberty duet, from
"_Puritani_."
"How you fine zat, eh? Zat makes ze hymn for ze Souse. Me, I am
republicain! _Voila!_ I wear ze moustache of _ze revolutionaire_--my
hairs cut themselves _en mecontent_! Were zere colere more red as red,
I should be zat!"
The professor was so struck by the brilliancy of this idea, that he
played the air again, until it rang like a phantom chorus over the
still plantations. At last, overcome by emotion and brandy, he slid
from the stool and sat at the foot of the smoke-stack, muttering:
"Zat is ze hymn--_hic_--dedicate to ze general and to ze--_hic_--countree!"
Then he slept the sleep of the just conscience.
"Thar's the 'Senator,' and she's gainin' on us," said the pilot, as we
walked forward, pointing to a thin column of smoke rising over the
trees just abreast of us.
"How far astern?"
"A matter of two mile round that pint."
"Splendid night for a race," muttered Styles. "Will she overtake us,
Cap'n?"
"Wail, maibee!" replied the old river dog, while the most professional
grin shot over his hard-wooden features. "Specially ef I ease up this
'ar ole gal."
"Ha! Now we'll have it. We won't turn in just now," chuckled Styles,
banging me in the back.
Almost imperceptibly our speed slackens, the thin dark column creeps
nearer round the trees on the point in our wake; at last the steamer
bursts into sight, not a pistol shot astern.
There is a sharp click of our pilot's bell, a gasping throb, as if our
boat took a deep, long breath; and just as the "Senator" makes our
wheel we dash ahead again, with every stroke of the piston threatening
to rack our frail fabric into shreds.
The river here is pretty wide and the channel deep and clear. The
"Senator" follows in gallant style, now gaining our quarter, now a
boat's length astern--both engines roaring and snorting like angry
hippopotami; both vessels rocking and straining till they seem to paw
their way through the churned water.
Talk of horse-racing and _rouge-et-noir_! But there is no excitement
that can approach boat-racing on a southern river! One by one people
pop up the ladders and throng the rails. First come the unemployed
deck-hands, then a stray gentleman or two, and finally ladies and
children, till the rail is full and every eye is anxiously strained to
the opposite boat.
She holds her own wondrous well, considering the reputation of ours. At
each burst, when she seems to gain on us, the crowd hold their breath;
as she drops off again there is a deep-drawn, gasping sign of relief,
like wind in the pines. Even the colonel has roused himself from dreams
of turtle at the St. Charles, and red fish at Pensacola; coming on deck
in a shooting jacket and glengary cap, that make him look like a jaunty
_Fosco_. He leans over the stern rail, smoking his cabana in long,
easy whiffs as we gain a length; sending out short, angry puffs at the
"Senator" as she creeps up on us.
Foot by foot, we gain steadily until the gap is widened to three or
four boat-lengths, though the "Senator" piles her fires till the shores
behind her glow from their reflection; and her decks--now black with
anxious lookers-on--send up cheer after cheer, as she snorts defiantly
after us.
Suddenly the bank seems to spring up right under our port bow! We have
cut it too close! Two sharp, vicious clicks of the bell; our helm goes
hard down and the engines stop with a sullen jar, as I catch a hissing
curse through the set teeth of the pilot.
A yell of wild triumph rises from the rival's deck. On she comes in
gallant style, shutting the gap and passing us like a race-horse,
before we can swing into the channel and recover headway. It is a
splendid sight as the noble boat passes us; her black bulk standing out
in the clear moonlight against the dim, gray banks like a living
monster; her great chimneys snorting out volumes of massive black smoke
that trail out level behind her, from the great speed. Her side toward
us is crowded with men, women and children; hats, handkerchiefs and
hands are swung madly about to aid the effort of the hundred voices.
Close down to the water's edge--scarce above the line of foam she
cuts--her lower deck lies black and undefined in the shadow of the
great mass above it. Suddenly it lights up with a lurid flash, as the
furnace-doors swing wide open; and in the hot glare the negro
stokers--their stalwart forms jetty black, naked to the waist and
streaming with exertion that makes the muscles strain out in great
cords--show like the distorted imps of some pictured inferno. They,
too, have imbibed the excitement. With every gesture of anxious haste
and eyeballs starting from their dusky heads, some plunge the long
rakes into the red mouths of the furnace, twisting and turning the
crackling mass with terrific strength; others hurl in huge logs of
resinous pine, already heated by contact till they burn like pitch.
Then the great doors bang to; the _Yo Ho!_ of the negroes dies away and
the whole hull is blacker from the contrast; while the "Senator,"
puffing denser clouds than ever, swings round the point a hundred yards
ahead!
There is dead silence on our boat--silence so deep that the rough
whisper of the pilot to the knot around him is heard the whole length
of her deck: "Damnation! but I'll overstep her yit, or--bust!"
"Good, old man!" responds Styles--"Let her out and I'll stand the
wine!"
Then the old colonel walks to the wheel; his face purple, his glengary
pushed back on his head, his cigar glowing like the "red eye of
battle," as he puffs angry wheezes of smoke through his nostrils.
"Damned hard! sir--hard! Egad! I'd burn the last ham in the locker to
overtake her!"--and he hurls the glowing stump after the "Senator," as
the Spartan youth hurled their shields into the thick of the battle ere
rushing to reclaim them.
On we speed, till the trees on the bank seem to fly back past us; and
round the point to see the "Senator," just turning another curve!
On still, faster than ever, with every glass on board jingling in its
frame; every joint and timber trembling, as though with a congestive
chill!
Still the black demons below ply their fires with the fattest logs, and
even a few barrels of rosin are slyly slipped in; the smoke behind us
stretched straight and flat from the smoke-stack.
Now we enter a straight, narrow reach with the chase just before us.
Faster--faster we go till the boat fairly rocks and swings from side to
side, half lifted with every throb of the engine. Closer and closer we
creep--harder and harder thump the cylinders--until at last we close;
our bow just lapping her stern! So we run a few yards.
Little by little--so little that we test it by counting her windows--we
reach her wheel--pass it--lock her bow, and run nose and nose for a
hundred feet!
The stillness of death is upon both boats; not a sound but the creak
and shudder as they struggle on. Suddenly the hard voice of our old
pilot crashes through it like a broadaxe:
"Good-bye, Sen'tor! I'll send yer a tug!"--and he gives his bell a
merry click.
Our huge boat gives one shuddering throb that racks her from end to
end--one plunge--and then she settles into a steady rush and forges
rapidly and evenly ahead. Wider and wider grows the gap; and we wind
out of sight with the beaten boat five hundred yards behind us.
The cigar I take from my mouth, to make way for the deep, long sigh, is
chewed to perfect pulp. A wild, pent-up yell of half-savage triumph
goes up from the crowded deck; such as is heard nowhere besides, save
where the captured work rewards the bloody and oft-repeated charge.
Cheer after cheer follows; and, as we approach the thin column of smoke
curling over the trees between us, Styles bestrides the prostrate form
of the still sleeping professor and makes the calliope yell and shriek
that classic ditty, "Old Gray Horse, come out of the Wilderness!" at
the invisible rival.
I doubt if heartier toast was ever drunk than that the colonel gave the
group around the wheel-house, when Styles "stood" the wine plighted the
pilot. The veteran was beaming, the glengary sat jauntily on one side;
and his voice actually gurgled as he said:
"Egad! I'd miss my dinner for a week for this! Gentlemen, a toast!
Here's to the old boat! God bless her ---- _soul!_"