passengers jumped joyfully ashore, and with noisy hilarity scattered
along the beach. The morning was beautiful. The clear sunlight glittered
upon the river and lighted up the forest with golden radiance. The sky
was blue, and the air cool and bracing. The land was high, well wooded,
and fertile. Seeing a substantial-looking double log house a short
distance from the river, about a dozen of us went up to warm our fingers
at its fire....
In a few moments our lucky boat swung round and came down for us,
leaving the less fortunate "Louis Philippe" to get off as she could, and
her passengers to learn not to halloo before they got out of the wood.
And now--now, by the first light of the morning for this grand, this
terrible Mississippi!
It was a misty moonlight night when we came to the confluence of the
Ohio with the Mississippi. We had come down a tedious, and in some
degree a perilous, course of one thousand miles; we had still a thousand
miles to go before arriving at New Orleans, which is the next stage of
our Southern journey.
The Mississippi and the Ohio come together at an acute angle, and their
waters flow down in unmingled currents, differing in color, for a long
distance. Even at night we could distinguish the line which divides
them. The Ohio water is filled with fine sand and loam; the Mississippi
is discolored with clay besides, and the water looks like a tub of
soapsuds after a hard day's washing.
Whoever looks upon the map with a utilitarian eye sees at the confluence
of these great rivers a favorable point for a great city. A few years
since an English company took possession of or purchased this site, and,
with a capital of nearly a million of pounds sterling, commenced
operations. They lithographed plans of the city and views of the public
buildings. There were domes, spires, and cupolas, hotels, warehouses,
and lines of steamboats along both rivers. How fair, how magnificent it
all looked on the India paper! You should see the result as I saw it in
the misty miasma, by the pale moonlight. Cairo is a swamp, overflowed by
every rise of either river. The large hotel, one of the two buildings
erected, is slowly sinking beneath the surface. Piles will not stand up,
and, however deep they are driven, sink still deeper. The present
business of the place, consisting of selling supplies to steamboats, and
transferring passengers from the down- to the up-river boats, is done on
floating store-boats, made fast to the shore. Cairo has since been built
into a considerable town by dyking out the rivers, and was an important
naval and military point during the Civil War....
This is my thirteenth day of steamboating,--the usual time across the
Atlantic,--and I have four days more at least. You may well suppose that
a hundred passengers are put to their trumps for amusement. The
"Wandering Jew" did very well as long as it lasted. Some keep on reading
novels, having laid in a stock or exchanged with other passengers, but
cards are the resource of the majority. The centre-tables, as soon as
breakfast is over, are occupied with parties playing poker or loo, and
are covered with bank-notes and silver. Many who do not play look on to
see the frolics of fortune. Several of these players are professional
gamesters, and quite cool, as men who hope to win by chance or skill
ought to be. Others, in their flushing cheeks and trembling hands and
voices, show how the passion is fastening upon them. These are driven
by weariness and tempted by the smallness of the game to commence
playing. The passion increases day by day, and so do the stakes, until,
before reaching New Orleans, the verdant ones have lost all their money,
and with it their self-respect and their confidence in the future.
Depressed by shame, disheartened at being in a strange city without
money, they are in a miserable condition, and ready to throw themselves
away. They become dependent upon the blacklegs who have led them on, are
instructed in their evil courses, made their tools and catspaws, and
perhaps induced to enter upon courses of crime of a more dangerous
character. All this comes of playing cards to kill time on the
Mississippi.
While those who need the excitement of betting play at games of bluff
and poker, some amuse themselves with whist, and old-fashioned fellows
get into a corner and have a bout at old sledge; and now at eleven
o'clock the great cabin of our boat presents a curious appearance.
Playing around the tables, with noisy, joyous laughter, are half a dozen
merry little boys and girls. These have all got well acquainted with
each other, and seem to enjoy themselves thoroughly.
I can give you little idea of this portion of the Mississippi. The river
is very low, and does not seem large enough to be the outlet of the
thousand streams above; for the waters on which we float come not only
from the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains, but there are mingled
with them the bright springs of Western New York, a large part of
Pennsylvania, part of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and a large
portion of the Western States. Yet, with all the waters of this vast
area, our boat can sometimes scarcely keep the channel. Last night,
running at her full speed, she went crashing into a snag, with a
concussion and scraping which woke us all up, and made the timid ones
spring out of their berths. Our safety was in our going down-stream
instead of up,--the difference of rubbing the back of a hedgehog the
right and the wrong way. These snags are great trees which cave off and
are washed down the current; the roots become embedded in the bottom;
and the stem and branches, pointing down-stream, and half or wholly
covered with water, form a terrible _steamboat de frise_, which tears an
ascending steamboat to pieces, but generally allows those going with the
current to pass over or through them with safety.
The river is full of islands, so that you often see but a small portion
of its waters; it winds along in so many convolutions that you must
steam a hundred miles often to make twenty in a straight line. Many
of these bends may be avoided at high water by taking the cross cuts,
called "running a _chute_" when the whole country for twenty miles on
each side is submerged.
Usually, on one side or the other, there is a perpendicular bank of
clay and loam some thirty feet high, and here and there are small
plantations. The river gradually wears them off, carrying down whole
acres in a season. From this bank the land descends back to the swamps
which skirt nearly the whole length of the river. These in very low
water are comparatively dry, but as the river rises they fill up, and
the whole country is like a great lake, filled with a dense growth
of timber. These curving banks, the rude and solitary huts of the
wood-cutters, the vast bars of sand, covered gradually with cane-brake,
and the range of impenetrable forest for hundreds of miles, comprise a
vast gloomy landscape, which must be seen to be realized....
While the scene is fresh in my memory let me describe to you my last
morning upon the Mississippi. But why do I speak thus of a scene which
can never fade from my remembrance, but in all future years will glow
the brightest picture which nature and civilization have daguerreotyped
upon my heart?
I rose before the sun, while all the east was glowing with his refracted
light. The steamboat had made excellent progress all night, not being
obliged to stop by fog, and was only detained a short time by running
plump into the mud on the river's bank; but she soon backed out of that
scrape.
We had here, fifty miles above New Orleans, an almost tropical sunrise.
The Mississippi, as if tired of its irregularities, flowed on an even
current between its low banks, along which on each side are raised
embankments of earth from four to ten feet in height,--the levee, which
extends for hundreds of miles along the river, defending the plantations
from being overflowed at high water.
As I gained the hurricane-deck the scene was enchanting, and, alas! I
fear indescribable. On each side, as far as the eye could reach, were
scattered the beautiful houses of the planters, flanked on each side by
the huts of their negroes, with trees, shrubbery, and gardens. For miles
away, up and down the river, extended the bright green fields of
sugar-cane, looking more like great fields of Indian corn than any crop
to which a Northern eye is familiar, but surpassing that in vividness
of the tints and density of growth, the cane growing ten feet high, and
the leaves at the top covering the whole surface. Back of these immense
fields of bright green were seen the darker shades of the cypress swamp,
and, to give the most picturesque effect to the landscape, on every
side, in the midst of each great plantation, rose the tall white towers
of the sugar-mills, throwing up graceful columns of smoke and clouds of
steam. The sugar-making process was in full operation.
After the wild desolation of the Mississippi, for more than half its
course below the Ohio, you will not wonder that I gazed upon this scene
of wealth and beauty in a sort of ecstasy. Oh! how unlike our November
in the far, bleak north was this scene of life in Louisiana! The earth
seemed a paradise of fertility and loveliness. The sun rose and lighted
up with a brighter radiance a landscape of which I had not imagined half
its beauty.
The steamer stopped to wood, and I sprang on shore. Well, the air was as
soft and delicious as our last days in June,--the gardens were filled
with flowers; yes, bushels of roses were blooming for those who chose to
pluck them; while oranges were turning their green to gold, and figs
were ripening in the sun. It was a Creole plantation,--French the only
language heard. A procession of carts, each drawn by a pair of mules,
and driven by a fat and happy negro, who seemed to joke with every
motion and laugh all over from head to foot, came from the sugar-house
to get wood, of which an immense quantity was lying upon the banks of
the river, saved from the vast mass of forest trees washed down at every
freshet.
I cannot describe the appropriateness of everything on these
plantations. These Creole planters look as if nature had formed them for
good masters; in any other sphere they are out of their element,--here
most decidedly at home. The negroes, male and female, seem made on
purpose for their masters, and the mules were certainly made on purpose
for the negroes. Any imaginable change would destroy this harmonious
relation. Do they not all enjoy alike this paradise,--this scene of
plenty and enchantment? The negroes work and are all the better for such
beneficial exercise, as they would be all the worse without it. They
have their feasts, their holidays,--more liberty than thousands of New
York mechanics enjoy in their lifetimes, and a freedom from care and
anxiety which a poor white man never knows. I begin to think that
Paradise is on the banks of the Mississippi, and that the nearest
approach to the realization of the schemes of Fourier is on our Southern
plantations.
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO RED RIVER.
FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED.
[We have given a descriptive sketch of steamboat travel down
the Ohio and Mississippi in the first half of the century, in
what we may almost call the days of the barbarians. It is here
followed by a sketch of steamboating, from New Orleans to and
up the Red River, in the ante-war period, in which will be
found methods as unprogressive and people as uncivilized as in
any period of modern travel. The getting off was a marvel of
procrastination, worthy of the most primitive days of American
travel.]
On a certain Saturday morning, when I had determined on the trip, I
found that two boats, the "Swamp Fox" and the "St. Charles," were
advertised to leave the same evening for the Red River. I went to the
levee, and finding the "St. Charles" to be the better of the two, I
asked her clerk if I could engage a state-room. There was just one
state-room berth left unengaged; I was requested to place my name
against its number on the passenger book; and did so, understanding that
it was thus secured for me.
Having taken leave of my friends, I had my luggage brought down, and
went on board at half-past three,--the boat being advertised to sail at
four. Four o'clock passed, and freight was still being taken on,--a fire
had been made in the furnace, and the boat's big bell was rung. I
noticed that the "Swamp Fox" was also firing up, and that her bell rang
whenever ours did,--though she was not advertised to sail till five. At
length, when five o'clock came, the clerk told me he thought, perhaps,
they would not be able to get off at all that night,--there was so much
freight still to come on board. Six o'clock arrived, and he felt certain
that, if they did get off that night, it would not be till very late. At
half-past six he said the captain had not come on board yet, and he was
quite sure they would not be able to get off that night. I prepared to
return to the hotel, and asked if they would leave in the morning. He
thought not. He was confident they would not. He was positive they could
not leave now before Monday,--Monday noon. Monday at twelve o'clock,--I
might rely upon it.
Monday morning the _Picayune_ stated, editorially, that the floating
palace, the "St. Charles," would leave for Shreveport at five o'clock,
and if anybody wanted to make a quick and luxurious trip up Red River
with a jolly good soul, Captain Lickup was in command. It also stated,
in another paragraph, that if any of its friends had any business up Red
River, Captain Pitchup was a whole-souled veteran in that trade, and was
going up with that remarkably low-draught favorite, the "Swamp Fox," to
leave at four o'clock that evening. Both boats were also announced, in
the advertising columns, to leave at four o'clock.
As the clerk had said noon, however, I thought there might have been a
misprint in the newspaper announcements, and so went on board the "St.
Charles" again before twelve. The clerk informed me that the newspaper
was right,--they had finally concluded not to sail until four o'clock.
Before four I returned again, and the boat again fired up, and rung her
bell. So did the "Swamp Fox." Neither, however, was quite ready to leave
at four o'clock. Not quite ready at five. Even at six--not yet quite
ready. At seven, the fires having burned out in the furnace, and the
stevedores having gone away, leaving a quantity of freight yet on the
dock, without advising this time with the clerk, I had my baggage
re-transferred to the hotel.
A similar performance was repeated on Tuesday.
On Wednesday I found the berth I had engaged occupied by a very strong
man, who was not very polite when I informed him that I believed there
was some mistake,--that the berth he was using had been engaged to me. I
went to the clerk, who said that he was sorry, but that, as I had not
stayed on board that night, and had not paid for the berth, he had not
been sure that I should go, and he had, therefore, given it to the
gentleman who now had it in possession, and whom, he thought, it would
not be best to try to reason out of it. He was very busy, he observed,
because the boat was going to start at four o'clock; if I would now pay
him the price of passage, he would do the best he could for me. When he
had time to examine, he would probably put me in some other state-room,
perhaps quite as good a one as that I had lost. Meanwhile, he kindly
offered me the temporary use of his private state-room. I inquired if it
was quite certain that the boat would get off at four; for I had been
asked to dine with a friend at three o'clock. There was not the smallest
doubt of it,--at four they would leave. They were all ready at that
moment, and only waited till four because the agent had advertised that
they would,--merely a technical point of honor.
But, by some error of calculation, I suppose, she didn't go at four. Nor
at five. Nor at six.
At seven o'clock the "Swamp Fox" and the "St. Charles" were both
discharging dense smoke from their chimneys, blowing steam, and ringing
bells. It was obvious that each was making every exertion to get off
before the other. The captains of both boats stood at the break of the
hurricane-deck, apparently waiting in great impatience for the mails to
come on board.
The "St. Charles" was crowded with passengers, and her decks were piled
high with freight. Bumboatmen, about the bows, were offering shells, and
oranges, and bananas; and newsboys, and peddlers, and tract distributors
were squeezing about with their wares among the passengers. I had
confidence in their instinct; there had been no such numbers of them the
previous evenings, and I made up my mind, although past seven o'clock,
that the "St. Charles" would not let her fires go down again.
Among the peddlers there were two of cheap "literature," and among their
yellow covers each had two or three copies of the cheap edition
(pamphlet) of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." They did not cry it out as they did
the other books they had, but held it forth among others, so that its
title could be seen. One of them told me he carried it because gentlemen
often inquired for it, and he sold a good many; at least three copies
were sold to passengers on the boat....
It was twenty minutes after seven when the captain observed,--scanning
the levee in every direction to see if there was another cart or
carriage coming towards us,--"No use waiting any longer, I reckon: throw
off, Mr. Heady." (The "Swamp Fox" did not leave, I afterwards heard,
till the following Saturday.)
We backed out, winded round head up, and as we began to breast the
current, a dozen of the negro boat-hands, standing on the freight piled
up on the low forecastle, began to sing, waving hats and handkerchiefs,
and shirts lashed to poles, towards the people who stood on the sterns
of the steamboats at the levee.
After losing a few lines, I copied literally into my note-book:
"Ye see dem boat way dah ahead.
Chorus.--Oahoiohieu.
De San Charles is arter 'em, dey mus' go behine.
Oahoiohieu.
So stir up dah, my livelies, stir her up.
Oahoiohieu.
Dey's burnin' not'n but fat and rosum.
Oahoiohieu.
Oh, we is gwine up de Red River, oh!
Oahoiohieu.
Oh, we mus' part from you dah asho'.
Oahoiohieu.
Gib my lub to Dinah, oh!
Oahoiohieu."...
The wit introduced into these songs has, I suspect, been rather
over-estimated.
As soon as the song was ended, I went into the cabin to remind the clerk
to obtain a berth for me. I found two brilliant supper-tables reaching
the whole length of the long cabin, and a file of men standing on each
side of both of them, ready to take seats as soon as the signal was
given.
The clerk was in his room, with two other men, and appeared to be more
occupied than ever. His manner was, I thought, now rather cool, not to
say rude; and he very distinctly informed me that every berth was
occupied, and he didn't know where I was to sleep. He judged I was able
to take care of myself; and if I was not, he was quite sure he had too
much to do to give all his time to my surveillance. I then went to the
commander, and told him that I thought myself entitled to a berth. I had
paid for one, and should not have taken passage in the boat if it had
not been promised me. I was not disposed to fight for it, particularly
as the gentleman occupying the berth engaged to me was a deal bigger
fellow than I, and also carried a bigger knife, but I thought the clerk
was accountable to me for a berth, and I begged that he would inform
him so. He replied that the clerk probably knew his business; he had
nothing to do with it; and walked away from me. I then addressed myself
to a second clerk, or sub-officer of some denomination, who more
good-naturedly informed me that half the company were in the same
condition as myself, and I needn't be alarmed, cots would be provided
for us.
As I saw that the supper-table was likely to be crowded, I asked if
there would be a second table. "Yes, they'll keep on eating till they
all get through." I walked the deck till I saw those who had been first
seated at the table coming out; then, going in, I found the table still
crowded, while many stood waiting to take seats as fast as any were
vacated. I obtained one for myself at length, and had no sooner occupied
it than two half-intoxicated and garrulous men took the adjoining
stools.
It was near nine o'clock before the tables were cleared away, and
immediately afterwards the waiters began to rig a framework for
sleeping-cots in their place. These cots were simply canvas shelves,
five feet and a half long, two wide, and less than two feet apart,
perpendicularly. A waiter, whose good will I had purchased at the
supper-table, gave me a hint to secure one of them for myself, as soon
as they were erected, by putting my hat in it. I did so, and saw that
others did the same. I chose a cot as near as possible to the midship
door of the cabin, perceiving that there was not likely to be the best
possible air, after all the passengers were laid up for the night in
this compact manner.
Nearly as fast as the cots were ready they were occupied. To make sure
that mine was not stolen from me, I also, without much undressing, laid
myself away. A single blanket was the only bedclothing provided. I had
not lain long before I was driven, by an exceedingly offensive smell, to
search for a cleaner neighborhood; but I found all the cots, fore and
aft, were either occupied or engaged. I immediately returned, and that I
might have a _dernier ressort_, left my shawl in that I had first
obtained.
In the forward part of the cabin there was a bar, a stove, a table, and
a placard of rules, forbidding smoking, gambling, or swearing in the
cabin, and a close company of drinkers, smokers, card-players, and
constant swearers. I went out, and stepped down to the boiler-deck. The
boat had been provided with very poor wood, and the firemen were
crowding it into the furnaces whenever they could find room for it,
driving smaller sticks between the larger ones at the top by a
battering-ram method.
Most of the firemen were Irish born; one with whom I conversed was
English. He said they were divided into three watches, each working four
hours at a time, and all hands liable to be called, when wooding, or
landing, or taking on freight, to assist the deck-hands. They were paid
now but thirty dollars a month--ordinarily forty, and sometimes
sixty--and board. He was a sailor bred. This boat-life was harder than
seafaring, but the pay was better, and the trips were short. The regular
thing was to make two trips, and then lay up for a spree. It would be
too hard on a man, he thought, to pursue it regularly; two trips
"on end" was as much as a man could stand. He must then take a
"refreshment." Working this way for three weeks, and then refreshing
for about one, he did not think it was unhealthy, no more than ordinary
seafaring. He concluded by informing me that the most striking
peculiarity of the business was that it kept a man, notwithstanding
wholesale periodical refreshment, very dry. He was of opinion that
after the information I had obtained, if I gave him at least the price
of a single drink and some tobacco, it would be characteristic of a
gentleman.
Going round behind the furnace, I found a large quantity of freight:
hogsheads, barrels, cases, bales, boxes, nail-rods, rolls of leather,
ploughs, cotton, bale-rope, and firewood, all thrown together in the
most confused manner, with hot steam-pipes and parts of the engine
crossing through it. As I explored farther aft, I found negroes lying
asleep in all postures upon the freight. A single group only, of five or
six, appeared to be awake, and as I drew near they commenced to sing a
Methodist hymn, not loudly, as negroes generally do, but, as it seemed
to me, with a good deal of tenderness and feeling; a few white
people--men, women, and children--were lying here and there among the
negroes. Altogether, I learned we had two hundred of these deck
passengers, black and white. A stove, by which they could fry bacon, was
the only furniture provided for them by the boat. They carried with them
their provisions for the voyage, and had their choice of the freight for
beds.
As I came to the bows again, and was about to ascend to the cabin, two
men came down, one of whom I recognized to have been my cot neighbor.
"Where's a bucket?" said he. "By thunder, this fellow was so strong I
could not sleep by him, so I stumped him to come down and wash his
feet." "I am much obliged to you," said I; and I was, very much; the man
had been lying in the cot beneath mine, to which I now returned, and
soon fell asleep.