Produced by David Widger. Earliest PG text edition produced by Graham
Allan
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
By Mark Twain
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. The Mississippi is Well worth Reading about.--It is
Remarkable.--Instead of Widening towards its Mouth, it grows
Narrower.--It Empties four hundred and six million Tons of Mud.--It
was First Seen in 1542.--It is Older than some Pages in European
History.--De Soto has the Pull.--Older than the Atlantic Coast.--Some
Half-breeds chip in.--La Salle Thinks he will Take a Hand.
CHAPTER II. La Salle again Appears, and so does a Cat-fish.--Buffaloes
also.--Some Indian Paintings are Seen on the Rocks.--“The Father of
Waters “does not Flow into the Pacific.--More History and Indians.
--Some Curious Performances--not Early English.--Natchez, or the Site of
it, is Approached.
CHAPTER III. A little History.--Early Commerce.--Coal Fleets and Timber
Rafts.--We start on a Voyage.--I seek Information.--Some Music.--The
Trouble begins.--Tall Talk.--The Child of Calamity.--Ground and
lofty Tumbling.--The Wash-up.--Business and Statistics.--Mysterious
Band.--Thunder and Lightning.--The Captain speaks.--Allbright
weeps.--The Mystery settled.--Chaff.--I am Discovered.--Some Art-work
proposed.--I give an Account of Myself.--Released.
CHAPTER IV. The Boys' Ambition.--Village Scenes.--Steamboat Pictures.
--A Heavy Swell.--A Runaway.
CHAPTER V. A Traveller.--A Lively Talker.--A Wild-cat Victim
CHAPTER VI. Besieging the Pilot.--Taken along.--Spoiling a Nap.--Fishing
for a Plantation.--“Points” on the River.--A Gorgeous Pilot-house.
CHAPTER VII. River Inspectors.--Cottonwoods and Plum Point.--Hat-Island
Crossing.--Touch and Go.--It is a Go.--A Lightning Pilot
CHAPTER VIII. A Heavy-loaded Big Gun.--Sharp Sights in
Darkness.--Abandoned to his Fate.--Scraping the Banks.--Learn him or
Kill him.
CHAPTER IX. Shake the Reef.--Reason Dethroned.--The Face of the Water.
--A Bewitching Scene.-Romance and Beauty.
CHAPTER X. Putting on Airs.--Taken down a bit.--Learn it as it is.--The
River Rising.
CHAPTER XI. In thg Tract Business.--Effects of the Rise.--Plantations
gone.--A Measureless Sea.--A Somnambulist Pilot.--Supernatural
Piloting.--Nobody there.--All Saved.
CHAPTER XII. Low Water.--Yawl sounding.--Buoys and Lanterns.--Cubs and
Soundings.--The Boat Sunk.--Seeking the Wrecked.
CHAPTER XIII. A Pilot's Memory.--Wages soaring.--A Universal
Grasp.--Skill and Nerve.--Testing a “Cub.”--“Back her for Life.”--A Good
Lesson.
CHAPTER XIV. Pilots and Captains.--High-priced Pilots.--Pilots in
Demand.--A Whistler.--A cheap Trade.--Two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar
Speed.
CHAPTER XV. New Pilots undermining the Pilots' Association.--Crutches
and Wages.--Putting on Airs.--The Captains Weaken.--The Association
Laughs.--The Secret Sign.--An Admirable System.--Rough on Outsiders.
--A Tight Monopoly.--No Loophole.--The Railroads and the War.
CHAPTER XVI. All Aboard.--A Glorious Start.--Loaded to Win.--Bands and
Bugles.--Boats and Boats.--Racers and Racing.
CHAPTER XVII. Cut-offs.--Ditching and Shooting.--Mississippi Changes.--A
Wild Night.--Swearing and Guessing.--Stephen in Debt.--He Confuses his
Creditors.--He makes a New Deal.--Will Pay them Alphabetically.
CHAPTER XVIII. Sharp Schooling.--Shadows.--I am Inspected.--Where did
you get them Shoes?--Pull her Down.--I want to kill Brown.--I try to run
her.--I am Complimented.
CHAPTER XIX. A Question of Veracity.--A Little Unpleasantness.--I have
an Audience with the Captain.--Mr. Brown Retires.
CHAPTER XX. I become a Passenger.--We hear the News.--A Thunderous
Crash.--They Stand to their Posts.--In the Blazing Sun.--A Grewsome
Spectacle.--His Hour has Struck.
CHAPTER XXI. I get my License.--The War Begins.--I become a
Jack-of-all-trades.
CHAPTER XXII. I try the Alias Business.--Region of Goatees--Boots begin
to Appear.--The River Man is Missing.--The Young Man is Discouraged.--
Specimen Water.--A Fine Quality of Smoke.--A Supreme Mistake.--We
Inspect the Town.--Desolation Way-traffic.--A Wood-yard.
CHAPTER XXIII. Old French Settlements.--We start for Memphis.--Young
Ladies and Russia-leather Bags.
CHAPTER XXIV. I receive some Information.--Alligator Boats.--Alligator
Talk.--She was a Rattler to go.--I am Found Out.
CHAPTER XXV. The Devil's Oven and Table.--A Bombshell falls.--No
Whitewash.--Thirty Years on the River.-Mississippi Uniforms.--Accidents
and Casualties.--Two hundred Wrecks.--A Loss to Literature.--Sunday-
Schools and Brick Masons.
CHAPTER XXVI. War Talk.--I Tilt over Backwards.--Fifteen Shot-holes.--A
Plain Story.--Wars and Feuds.--Darnell versus Watson.--A Gang and a
Woodpile.--Western Grammar.--River Changes.--New Madrid.--Floods and
Falls.
CHAPTER XXVII. Tourists and their Note-books.--Captain Hall.--Mrs.
Trollope's Emotions.--Hon. Charles Augustus Murray's Sentiment.--Captain
Marryat's Sensations.--Alexander Mackay's Feelings.--Mr. Parkman
Reports
CHAPTER XXVIII. Swinging down the River.--Named for Me.--Plum Point
again.--Lights and Snag Boats.--Infinite Changes.--A Lawless
River.--Changes and Jetties.--Uncle Mumford Testifies.--Pegging
the River.--What the Government does.--The Commission.--Men and
Theories.--“Had them Bad.”--Jews and Prices.
CHAPTER XXIX. Murel's Gang.--A Consummate Villain.--Getting Rid of
Witnesses.--Stewart turns Traitor.--I Start a Rebellion.--I get a New
Suit of Clothes.--We Cover our Tracks.--Pluck and Capacity.--A Good
Samaritan City.--The Old and the New.
CHAPTER XXX. A Melancholy Picture.--On the Move.--River Gossip.--She
Went By a-Sparklin'.--Amenities of Life.--A World of Misinformation.--
Eloquence of Silence.--Striking a Snag.--Photographically Exact.--Plank
Side-walks.
CHAPTER XXXI. Mutinous Language.--The Dead-house.--Cast-iron German and
Flexible English.--A Dying Man's Confession.--I am Bound and Gagged.
--I get Myself Free.--I Begin my Search.--The Man with one Thumb.
--Red Paint and White Paper.--He Dropped on his Knees.--Fright and
Gratitude.--I Fled through the Woods.--A Grisly Spectacle.--Shout, Man,
Shout.--A look of Surprise and Triumph.--The Muffled Gurgle of a Mocking
Laugh.--How strangely Things happen.--The Hidden Money.
CHAPTER XXXII. Ritter's Narrative.--A Question of
Money.--Napoleon.--Somebody is Serious.--Where the Prettiest Girl used
to Live.
CHAPTER XXXIII. A Question of Division.--A Place where there was
no License.--The Calhoun Land Company.--A Cotton-planter's
Estimate.--Halifax and Watermelons.--Jewelled-up Bar-keepers.
CHAPTER XXXIV. An Austere Man.--A Mosquito Policy.--Facts dressed in
Tights.--A swelled Left Ear.
CHAPTER XXXV. Signs and Scars.--Cannon-thunder Rages.--Cave-dwellers.
--A Continual Sunday.--A ton of Iron and no Glass.--The Ardent is
Saved.--Mule Meat--A National Cemetery.--A Dog and a Shell.--Railroads
and Wealth.--Wharfage Economy.--Vicksburg versus The “Gold Dust.”--A
Narrative in Anticipation.
CHAPTER XXXVI. The Professor Spins a Yarn.--An Enthusiast in Cattle.--He
makes a Proposition.--Loading Beeves at Acapulco.--He was n't Raised to
it.--He is Roped In.--His Dull Eyes Lit Up.--Four Aces, you Ass!--He
does n't Care for the Gores.
CHAPTER XXXVII. A Terrible Disaster.--The “Gold Dust” explodes her
Boilers.--The End of a Good Man.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. Mr. Dickens has a Word.--Best Dwellings and
their Furniture.--Albums and Music.--Pantelettes and
Conch-shells.--Sugar-candy Rabbits and Photographs.--Horse-hair Sofas
and Snuffers.--Rag Carpets and Bridal Chambers.
CHAPTER XXXIX. Rowdies and Beauty.--Ice as Jewelry.--Ice
Manufacture.--More Statistics.--Some Drummers.--Oleomargarine versus
Butter.--Olive Oil versus Cotton Seed.--The Answer was not Caught.
--A Terrific Episode.--A Sulphurous Canopy.--The Demons of War.--The
Terrible Gauntlet.
CHAPTER XL. In Flowers, like a Bride.--A White-washed Castle.--A
Southern Prospectus.--Pretty Pictures.--An Alligator's Meal.
CHAPTER XLI. The Approaches to New Orleans.--A Stirring
Street.--Sanitary Improvements.--Journalistic Achievements.--Cisterns
and Wells.
CHAPTER XLII. Beautiful Grave-yards.--Chameleons and
Panaceas.--Inhumation and Infection.--Mortality and Epidemics.--The Cost
of Funerals.
CHAPTER XLIII. I meet an Acquaintance.--Coffins and Swell Houses.--Mrs.
O'Flaherty goes One Better.--Epidemics and Embamming.--Six hundred for a
Good Case.--Joyful High Spirits.
CHAPTER XLIV. French and Spanish Parts of the City.--Mr. Cable and the
Ancient Quarter.--Cabbages and Bouquets.--Cows and Children.--The Shell
Road. The West End.--A Good Square Meal.--The Pompano.--The Broom-
Brigade.--Historical Painting.--Southern Speech.--Lagniappe.
CHAPTER XLV. “Waw” Talk.--Cock-Fighting.--Too Much to Bear.--Fine
Writing.--Mule Racing.
CHAPTER XLVI. Mardi-Gras.--The Mystic Crewe.--Rex and Relics.--Sir
Walter Scott.--A World Set Back.--Titles and Decorations.--A Change.
CHAPTER XLVII. Uncle Remus.--The Children Disappointed.--We Read Aloud.
--Mr. Cable and Jean au Poquelin.--Involuntary Trespass.--The Gilded
Age.--An Impossible Combination.--The Owner Materializes and Protests.
CHAPTER XLVIII. Tight Curls and Springy Steps.--Steam-plows.--“No. I.”
Sugar.--A Frankenstein Laugh.--Spiritual Postage.--A Place where there
are no Butchers or Plumbers.--Idiotic Spasms.
CHAPTER XLIX. Pilot-Farmers.--Working on Shares.--Consequences.--Men who
Stick to their Posts.--He saw what he would do.--A Day after the Fair.
CHAPTER L. A Patriarch.--Leaves from a Diary.--A Tongue-stopper.--The
Ancient Mariner.--Pilloried in Print.--Petrified Truth.
CHAPTER LI. A Fresh “Cub” at the Wheel.--A Valley Storm.--Some Remarks
on Construction.--Sock and Buskin.--The Man who never played Hamlet.--I
got Thirsty.--Sunday Statistics.
CHAPTER LII. I Collar an Idea.--A Graduate of Harvard.--A Penitent
Thief.--His Story in the Pulpit.--Something Symmetrical.--A Literary
Artist.--A Model Epistle.--Pumps again Working.--The “Nub” of the Note.
CHAPTER LIII. A Masterly Retreat.--A Town at Rest.--Boyhood's
Pranks.--Friends of my Youth.--The Refuge for Imbeciles.--I am Presented
with my Measure.
CHAPTER LIV. A Special Judgment.--Celestial Interest.--A Night of
Agony.--Another Bad Attack.--I become Convalescent.--I address a
Sunday-school.--A Model Boy.
CHAPTER LV. A second Generation.--A hundred thousand Tons of Saddles.--A
Dark and Dreadful Secret.--A Large Family.--A Golden-haired Darling.
--The Mysterious Cross.--My Idol is Broken.--A Bad Season of Chills and
Fever.--An Interesting Cave.
CHAPTER LVI. Perverted History--A Guilty Conscience.--A Supposititious
Case.--A Habit to be Cultivated.--I Drop my Burden.--Difference in
Time.
CHAPTER LVII. A Model Town.--A Town that Comes up to Blow in the Summer.
--The Scare-crow Dean.--Spouting Smoke and Flame.--An Atmosphere that
tastes good.--The Sunset Land.
CHAPTER LVIII. An Independent Race.--Twenty-four-hour Towns.--Enchanting
Scenery.--The Home of the Plow.--Black Hawk.--Fluctuating Securities.
--A Contrast.--Electric Lights.
CHAPTER LIX. Indian Traditions and Rattlesnakes.--A Three-ton
Word.--Chimney Rock.--The Panorama Man.--A Good Jump.--The Undying Head.
--Peboan and Seegwun.
CHAPTER LX. The Head of Navigation.--From Roses to Snow.--Climatic
Vaccination.--A Long Ride.--Bones of Poverty.--The Pioneer of
Civilization.--Jug of Empire.--Siamese Twins.--The Sugar-bush.--He Wins
his Bride.--The Mystery about the Blanket.--A City that is always a
Novelty.--Home again.
APPENDIX. A B C D
THE 'BODY OF THE NATION'
BUT the basin of the Mississippi is the _Body of The Nation_. All the
other parts are but members, important in themselves, yet more important
in their relations to this. Exclusive of the Lake basin and of 300,000
square miles in Texas and New Mexico, which in many aspects form a part
of it, this basin contains about 1,250,000 square miles. In extent it is
the second great valley of the world, being exceeded only by that of the
Amazon. The valley of the frozen Obi approaches it in extent; that of
La Plata comes next in space, and probably in habitable capacity, having
about eight-ninths of its area; then comes that of the Yenisei, with
about seven-ninths; the Lena, Amoor, Hoang-ho, Yang-tse-kiang, and
Nile, five-ninths; the Ganges, less than one-half; the Indus, less
than one-third; the Euphrates, one-fifth; the Rhine, one-fifteenth. It
exceeds in extent the whole of Europe, exclusive of Russia, Norway,
and Sweden. _It would contain austria four times, germany or spain
five times, france six times, the british islands or italy ten times._
Conceptions formed from the river-basins of Western Europe are rudely
shocked when we consider the extent of the valley of the Mississippi;
nor are those formed from the sterile basins of the great rivers of
Siberia, the lofty plateaus of Central Asia, or the mighty sweep of
the swampy Amazon more adequate. Latitude, elevation, and rainfall
all combine to render every part of the Mississippi Valley capable of
supporting a dense population. _As a dwelling-place for civilized man it
is by far the first upon our globe_.
EDITOR'S TABLE, HARPER'S MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 1863
CHAPTER 1
The River and Its History
THE Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace
river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. Considering the
Missouri its main branch, it is the longest river in the world--four
thousand three hundred miles. It seems safe to say that it is also the
crookedest river in the world, since in one part of its journey it uses
up one thousand three hundred miles to cover the same ground that the
crow would fly over in six hundred and seventy-five. It discharges three
times as much water as the St. Lawrence, twenty-five times as much
as the Rhine, and three hundred and thirty-eight times as much as the
Thames. No other river has so vast a drainage-basin: it draws its water
supply from twenty-eight States and Territories; from Delaware, on the
Atlantic seaboard, and from all the country between that and Idaho on
the Pacific slope--a spread of forty-five degrees of longitude. The
Mississippi receives and carries to the Gulf water from fifty-four
subordinate rivers that are navigable by steamboats, and from some
hundreds that are navigable by flats and keels. The area of its
drainage-basin is as great as the combined areas of England, Wales,
Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Italy,
and Turkey; and almost all this wide region is fertile; the Mississippi
valley, proper, is exceptionally so.
It is a remarkable river in this: that instead of widening toward its
mouth, it grows narrower; grows narrower and deeper. From the junction
of the Ohio to a point half way down to the sea, the width averages a
mile in high water: thence to the sea the width steadily diminishes,
until, at the 'Passes,' above the mouth, it is but little over half
a mile. At the junction of the Ohio the Mississippi's depth is
eighty-seven feet; the depth increases gradually, reaching one hundred
and twenty-nine just above the mouth.
The difference in rise and fall is also remarkable--not in the upper,
but in the lower river. The rise is tolerably uniform down to Natchez
(three hundred and sixty miles above the mouth)--about fifty feet.
But at Bayou La Fourche the river rises only twenty-four feet; at New
Orleans only fifteen, and just above the mouth only two and one half.
An article in the New Orleans 'Times-Democrat,' based upon reports of
able engineers, states that the river annually empties four hundred and
six million tons of mud into the Gulf of Mexico--which brings to mind
Captain Marryat's rude name for the Mississippi--'the Great Sewer.' This
mud, solidified, would make a mass a mile square and two hundred and
forty-one feet high.
The mud deposit gradually extends the land--but only gradually; it has
extended it not quite a third of a mile in the two hundred years which
have elapsed since the river took its place in history. The belief of
the scientific people is, that the mouth used to be at Baton Rouge,
where the hills cease, and that the two hundred miles of land between
there and the Gulf was built by the river. This gives us the age of that
piece of country, without any trouble at all--one hundred and twenty
thousand years. Yet it is much the youthfullest batch of country that
lies around there anywhere.
The Mississippi is remarkable in still another way--its disposition to
make prodigious jumps by cutting through narrow necks of land, and thus
straightening and shortening itself. More than once it has shortened
itself thirty miles at a single jump! These cut-offs have had curious
effects: they have thrown several river towns out into the rural
districts, and built up sand bars and forests in front of them. The town
of Delta used to be three miles below Vicksburg: a recent cutoff has
radically changed the position, and Delta is now _two miles above_
Vicksburg.
Both of these river towns have been retired to the country by that
cut-off. A cut-off plays havoc with boundary lines and jurisdictions:
for instance, a man is living in the State of Mississippi to-day, a
cut-off occurs to-night, and to-morrow the man finds himself and his
land over on the other side of the river, within the boundaries and
subject to the laws of the State of Louisiana! Such a thing, happening
in the upper river in the old times, could have transferred a slave from
Missouri to Illinois and made a free man of him.
The Mississippi does not alter its locality by cut-offs alone: it
is always changing its habitat _bodily_--is always moving bodily
_sidewise_. At Hard Times, La., the river is two miles west of the
region it used to occupy. As a result, the original _site _of that
settlement is not now in Louisiana at all, but on the other side of
the river, in the State of Mississippi. _Nearly the whole of that one
thousand three hundred miles of old mississippi river which la salle
floated down in his canoes, two hundred years ago, is good solid dry
ground now_. The river lies to the right of it, in places, and to the
left of it in other places.
Although the Mississippi's mud builds land but slowly, down at the
mouth, where the Gulfs billows interfere with its work, it builds fast
enough in better protected regions higher up: for instance, Prophet's
Island contained one thousand five hundred acres of land thirty years
ago; since then the river has added seven hundred acres to it.
But enough of these examples of the mighty stream's eccentricities for
the present--I will give a few more of them further along in the book.
Let us drop the Mississippi's physical history, and say a word about its
historical history--so to speak. We can glance briefly at its slumbrous
first epoch in a couple of short chapters; at its second and wider-awake
epoch in a couple more; at its flushest and widest-awake epoch in a good
many succeeding chapters; and then talk about its comparatively tranquil
present epoch in what shall be left of the book.
The world and the books are so accustomed to use, and over-use, the word
'new' in connection with our country, that we early get and permanently
retain the impression that there is nothing old about it. We do of
course know that there are several comparatively old dates in American
history, but the mere figures convey to our minds no just idea, no
distinct realization, of the stretch of time which they represent.
To say that De Soto, the first white man who ever saw the Mississippi
River, saw it in 1542, is a remark which states a fact without
interpreting it: it is something like giving the dimensions of a sunset
by astronomical measurements, and cataloguing the colors by their
scientific names;--as a result, you get the bald fact of the sunset, but
you don't see the sunset. It would have been better to paint a picture
of it.
The date 1542, standing by itself, means little or nothing to us; but
when one groups a few neighboring historical dates and facts around it,
he adds perspective and color, and then realizes that this is one of the
American dates which is quite respectable for age.
For instance, when the Mississippi was first seen by a white man, less
than a quarter of a century had elapsed since Francis I.'s defeat at
Pavia; the death of Raphael; the death of Bayard, _Sans Peur Et Sans
Reproche_; the driving out of the Knights-Hospitallers from Rhodes by
the Turks; and the placarding of the Ninety-Five Propositions,--the act
which began the Reformation. When De Soto took his glimpse of the river,
Ignatius Loyola was an obscure name; the order of the Jesuits was not
yet a year old; Michael Angelo's paint was not yet dry on the Last
Judgment in the Sistine Chapel; Mary Queen of Scots was not yet born,
but would be before the year closed. Catherine de Medici was a child;
Elizabeth of England was not yet in her teens; Calvin, Benvenuto
Cellini, and the Emperor Charles V. were at the top of their fame, and
each was manufacturing history after his own peculiar fashion; Margaret
of Navarre was writing the 'Heptameron' and some religious books,--the
first survives, the others are forgotten, wit and indelicacy being
sometimes better literature preservers than holiness; lax court morals
and the absurd chivalry business were in full feather, and the joust and
the tournament were the frequent pastime of titled fine gentlemen who
could fight better than they could spell, while religion was the passion
of their ladies, and classifying their offspring into children of full
rank and children by brevet their pastime.
In fact, all around, religion was in a peculiarly blooming condition:
the Council of Trent was being called; the Spanish Inquisition was
roasting, and racking, and burning, with a free hand; elsewhere on the
continent the nations were being persuaded to holy living by the sword
and fire; in England, Henry VIII. had suppressed the monasteries,
burnt Fisher and another bishop or two, and was getting his English
reformation and his harem effectively started. When De Soto stood on the
banks of the Mississippi, it was still two years before Luther's death;
eleven years before the burning of Servetus; thirty years before the St.
Bartholomew slaughter; Rabelais was not yet published; 'Don Quixote' was
not yet written; Shakespeare was not yet born; a hundred long years must
still elapse before Englishmen would hear the name of Oliver Cromwell.
Unquestionably the discovery of the Mississippi is a datable fact which
considerably mellows and modifies the shiny newness of our country, and
gives her a most respectable outside-aspect of rustiness and antiquity.
De Soto merely glimpsed the river, then died and was buried in it by his
priests and soldiers. One would expect the priests and the soldiers
to multiply the river's dimensions by ten--the Spanish custom of the
day--and thus move other adventurers to go at once and explore it. On
the contrary, their narratives when they reached home, did not excite
that amount of curiosity. The Mississippi was left unvisited by whites
during a term of years which seems incredible in our energetic days. One
may 'sense' the interval to his mind, after a fashion, by dividing it
up in this way: After De Soto glimpsed the river, a fraction short of
a quarter of a century elapsed, and then Shakespeare was born; lived a
trifle more than half a century, then died; and when he had been in his
grave considerably more than half a century, the _second _white man saw
the Mississippi. In our day we don't allow a hundred and thirty years to
elapse between glimpses of a marvel. If somebody should discover a creek
in the county next to the one that the North Pole is in, Europe and
America would start fifteen costly expeditions thither: one to explore
the creek, and the other fourteen to hunt for each other.
For more than a hundred and fifty years there had been white settlements
on our Atlantic coasts. These people were in intimate communication
with the Indians: in the south the Spaniards were robbing, slaughtering,
enslaving and converting them; higher up, the English were trading beads
and blankets to them for a consideration, and throwing in civilization
and whiskey, 'for lagniappe;' and in Canada the French were schooling
them in a rudimentary way, missionarying among them, and drawing whole
populations of them at a time to Quebec, and later to Montreal, to buy
furs of them. Necessarily, then, these various clusters of whites must
have heard of the great river of the far west; and indeed, they did
hear of it vaguely,--so vaguely and indefinitely, that its course,
proportions, and locality were hardly even guessable. The mere
mysteriousness of the matter ought to have fired curiosity and compelled
exploration; but this did not occur. Apparently nobody happened to want
such a river, nobody needed it, nobody was curious about it; so, for
a century and a half the Mississippi remained out of the market and
undisturbed. When De Soto found it, he was not hunting for a river, and
had no present occasion for one; consequently he did not value it or
even take any particular notice of it.
But at last La Salle the Frenchman conceived the idea of seeking out
that river and exploring it. It always happens that when a man seizes
upon a neglected and important idea, people inflamed with the same
notion crop up all around. It happened so in this instance.
Naturally the question suggests itself, Why did these people want the
river now when nobody had wanted it in the five preceding generations?
Apparently it was because at this late day they thought they had
discovered a way to make it useful; for it had come to be believed
that the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of California, and therefore
afforded a short cut from Canada to China. Previously the supposition
had been that it emptied into the Atlantic, or Sea of Virginia.