New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1860-09-10
willis upon she mississippi.


\
From the Home Journal
The eighteen hour passage down the Mississippi,
from Quincy to st. Louis, had, for mesthe promise
Of a holiday trip. Different rivers, even IN the
same country, have Their different characters OF
steamboat, (as had received first impression, IN
coming up from New Orleans, seven or eight years
ago. was very vivid. II 10 style OF water con
l.veyance, Qet me here snggestl so particularly
different from steamboatiug on the Thames, that
the Prince Of Wales should not fail to give himself
the pleasant surprisea local speciality, let us as
sure His Royal Highness, which is as essential to
/ his American experience, as for the traveller at
1 Venice To have seen moonlight from gondola
With no piers to their riverside and each craft
being only allowed how.room at the paved slope
of the Quincy leyee or beach, the freight-expect-
ant feet of thirty or forty steamers, all gayly
painted, overlaid each other like the feathers in
| the tail of the peaeoek-our boat the Die Yer-
| non" being somewhat the most snowy. / was
amused to renew my acquaintance with the NIisss-
sippi-tude of her arrangement Her main deck
he usual one on other rivers for the reception Of
passengers was devoted entirely to her machinery
and freight, forming that unsightly midshps of
dirt and confusion which the eye of the admfing
| spectator is expected to ignore-the steamer, in
| fact, being like huge levathan that skins the
water with entrails all exposed but bearing the
gayest of fiotillas his back And, oh the SPLEEN
\ dor of that upper deck! The saloon, two hundred
and fifty feet long was all that gliding and gay fur
mure costly carpets and carving, paint and uphos-
| terry, could make it. A piano was at one end, and
card tables and bar-room at the other. Lines of
state-rooms extended between the sofas and the
tahfail promenade, and these, opening outward
and inward in the day time, served as deep wind
| oWs making the whole upper structure open and
airy. doubt whether any one perspective, within
the architectural wilderness of the Great East
ern = is as effective as glance through the show
saloon of the Die Vernon
| The crew of this river craft numbered no less
! than seventy-four; and must connect with the
| account of her extensive structure description
OF one Of her embarkations of freight, at which
tnrac n if,tat Il,
town of Hannibal, in Missouri, landing at which
we arrived two hours after starting, and at which
we were to wait some little time for the arrival of
the Western rail train from St. Joseph's-taking
| in, meantime, twenty or thirty mammoth hogs
I heads Of tobacco and herd of the widest of
prairie cattle.
The unmitigated terror with which those I'M
| tanned bulls, COWS and oxen looked at the walk
4 they were expected to take, was not at all sur.
/ prisng. It was to cross plank platform into a
Charybds of darkness, machinery, fire and strange
Objects running gauntlet of diabolical looking
men upon the way, and mostfearfully banged upon
the rump and sides before starting. This, for me,
/ was not the new part of the spectacle, however.
4 One may see, at almost any railroad depot or
/ steamboat landing, similar preparation of frantic
| beef for the market; (and, mercy aside, it is an
i everyday taintng of our comestibles with mad
| ness, which medical science should give us a re-
| port upon0 but there was something must des
cribe more particularly, the forcing OF the men to
i force tie cattle
AS the reader already knows, probably, the
/ &C hands of q Mississippi steamer are moral
drift-Wood for which that river is the whole west
/ ern eountrys undiscrminating sluiee, 1t is a vo-
i cation for desperate men, requiring no skill, and
resorted to last refuge from starving or crime,
| the only class of men have ever seen, who could
4 ever forget that their dirt and rags and hideous
| abandonment of demeanor and countenance were
| visible to any human eye, unconscious as well as
| desperate in their misery. Over such men there
must be tyrannical master, Of course; and quite
model Of that thing was the boatswan or g boss
Of the Die Vernon brutal Hercules of fel-
low, WHO could whip any dozen of his crew, and
who walked about with short club in his hand,
looking as if he expected every moment to be |
called npen to do it.
The cattle were on the open leVee, snorting and |
plunging, and each striving to get his head to this
center of the herd, when the thirty or forty men
were driven out over the gangway to compel them
toward the plank. As it was really dangerous TO
approach the maddened creatures, there was ma
turally some lodging and finching by the crew
and, close upon any such demonstration, followed |
o clenched nape of the mans neck or a punch |
with the club or fist, which showed the animals |
horns to be the easier alternative There was not
only directing, but ordering or rebuking of
the deaperadoes.
They were treated as if below every thing except
| blow or curse, and they expected to push
and crowd the cattle onward as if a part of their
| duty were total disregard Of their own worthless
lives For most OF the beeyes, the thirty or forty
4 clubs were sufficient persuaders; but there was
here and there an Infatuated bull who took a look
| at the steam machinery and turned; and for these
| there was final propulsion which / had never
| before seen applied. The Hereulean boss seized
| the creature by the tail, and with twist of it
which would end in wrenching, it from the spine,
4 evidently inflicted torture which there was no
resisting. As the awful elbow went round, straight
ahead went the bull, galloping up the plank and
Jumping on board as if discharged from mortar
Upon inquiry, afterWard, found that the tails |
were oftenest dsIocated by this process-not con-
sdered of much consequence, as the cattle were
on their way to the slaughterhouse.
i yentured down to the lower deck, after dark
m wa hal riTttbI
OF freight, machinery and cattle; and the men, | |
found, were disposed of very much like kennel
of dogs: Most Of them were asleep wherever they
could find a corner or resting place for
the head; here and there group gambling
by the light of the furnace fires, some were
stretched like wet clothes over the hogsheads of
tobacco but no sign Of any thought of accommo-
dation for them. The contrast between this level
of abandoned men and moaning cattle, and the
splendid luxury of the floor above, all afoat over
thessame keel and guided by the same helm-was,
to say the least, suggestive!
We had quite French dinner, exceedingly high
seasoned and sumptu0us; and in the evening there
was quite variety OF amusement. Two or three
young ladies among the passengers kept the piano
going at one end Of the long and brilliantly lighted
saloon, and at the other several professed gam
blers spread their tables. and there were large
audiences for both. To look at the gay scene
within, it was hard to realize that we WERE mean
time gliding swiftly through such an untrodden
wilderness as met the eye with but step out upon
the deck.
lufAu bceH SUIT tUOklNB lorWdfu TO our
raDgements, that any portion of this trip down the
Mississippi should be in the night; bnt found both
that the hours upon hours of unbroken foliage on
the comparatively level shores, produced kind Of
surfeit for the eye, in the daytime and that the un
dulatory reflections Of the stars in the wary surges
Of the boat, were, at night an exceedingly beauti-
full variation to the dim scenery of the mrror-like
stream was out admiring the starlight aspect
Of things. when we arrived at Alton the small land
ing at the mouth of the Missouri, making thus my
first and very slight acquaintance with that majes
tic river.
We arrived at ST. Louis at early daylight, on Sab
bath morning and, with the perfection of June
Verdure and fragrance about US, in dawn as deli
cions as Paradise it seemed as if there was a yisi-
BILE worship of God in mere Nature. Going up to
our hotel through the streets of metropolis that
is mostly Catholic, and finding apparently the
whole population pouring forth to the Cathedral
for the matns OF sunrise, shops shut and bells ring
ing, really seemed like another part of the same
universal service had expected that my first
impression OF this proverbal Babylon of the West
would be thus irresiatibly devout, but so ii was!
A Hotel Incident.