New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-02-21
Away Down the River.

-P6tersOnS Magazine.
| Away Down the River.
If evening ever comes more quietly, i'm
perceptibly and with more of deliciou
repose than on the Mississippi river a
Natchez, in March, one might be curious t,
know IT.. The great stream is suddenl,
swallowed up out of your sight by mystica
shades which you had not seen approaching
A few minutes before, the low bank, TIL
bars, with their Ominous freight of drift
wood, with vultures perched thereon, tn
barges passing in solemn order like flu
neral procession of overgrOwn gOndOlas
the tangled thlckets, and the broad ex
panses of forest, all were distinctly visi
! bic. But now you grope your way. The
| huge steamer trembles as the pilot whirls
| her around and heads her toward the higt
| bank on which Natchez stands. Belll
| ring. negroes shout, the furnaces glow
DARK figures pacing upon the decks give
sharp commands; but you float in an un
| nameable, unknowable region; the dark
mesa seems to have blotted you out, and
you instinctively tap the planks of the
deck to satisfy yourself that you are still
on packetboat.
At last there is breath of perfume from
the rose-strewn shores; here and there q
light CLEANS family, as if discouraged at
the intensity of the blackness; there is
much cursing, and, to your wondering
mind, an almost insane repetition of appar.
emily useless commands. AS the mate
drives the roustabouts forward, ne cries out
the orders angrily twice or three times, and
then bursts into prolonged oaths, which
seem like broadsides from a man.of-war.
Doubtless you have seen the mate follow
up his Oaths and emphatic verbal abuse
with many sound blow, delivered squarely
between the staring eyes of some negro
blessed with less than ordinary intelligence.
II the men are not all at their posts when
the steamer arrives at the wharfboat, you
may see one or two scientific "knOck.
downs" Does Sambo retaliate! Not he
On the contrary, he bides his time, and
brings the ill-tempered mate into court of
law to answer for his brutalities. Against
the mate Of only one or two steamers there
are sometimes thirty or forty suits of this
nature pending.
Now torch-light, ruddy, strong and
cheering, penetrates the Stygian black
ness. 1t disclOses half a dozen brawny
forms, gesticulating wildly and singing
some dialect CATCH Now they throw out
a slender rope, then heave overheard a
heavy cable. Another light, on the oppo.
site eide of the gangway, blazes up, and
shows that our great craft is coming to
the whariboat, and is in dangerous prox-
unity to small sternwheel steamer. The
frail bark, with its decks apparently as
fragile as egg-shells, seems about 10 be
crushed. But the pilots lynx like eyes
have discerned the difficulty; his ingenuity
is set busily at work, and by the aid of
the wild looking men who all at once
tumble up from the interior recesses of
the smaller boat, and pole and thump at
our vessel as though she were a cutie
fish trying to swamp them, all trouble Is
avoided. We come safe to land, and
climb the bluff, aided by faith rather than
by the skill with which the negro driver
guides his horse.
We have been on tour OF observation up
the river, and have found the Mississippi as
capriciOus as Northern trout stream. We
have sailed with planters whose hearts were
sore because OF their drowned and mud
buried cotton fields; gossiped with pilots,
who always speak Of the river with bated
breath, and sometimes in q whisper, as if
they superstitiously dreaded that it might
Overhear them; cOnsOrted with long Missis-
sippians lean and active Arkansians, blue
and those incomprehensible
the Hebrew travellers, who
have cOnsignments of produce for every
little woe-begone and water-straugled place
on the whole course. We have cast melan-
once one of the most hourishing
towns on the Arkansas side, but now for.
lOrn little huddle of dreary cabins, slipping
away into the oOze. On the crown Of the
ievee we saw men with mule carts, busily
fighting the worrying currents. which high
water always brings; and now and then
men and mules went down together into the
water to come up-the men swearing and
the mules kicking and plunging.
been very much beaten, and had retired to
some refuse heap to die. 1t was once the |
toughest place on the Mississippi. Life was
cheap there; men died every day with their !
boots On-strangers, especially. The pilots |
On the steamers have many stories Of the |
rays between NapOleOn's townspeOple and |
The crews of steamboats,. Time was when |
IN Interchange of revolver shots between |
The people on the wharves and those on a |
boats deck was considered quite the thing |
IS the mail packets were arriving or depart |
ng. 1t was in the days when men wore
,owie knives and revOlvers in order to use
hem every day-nOt from the mere force
# habit, rs n0w-when a joust at arms
dded greatly to the excellence of gentle
mans reputation, and when any Northern
'erson who spoke civ;lly to a negro was at
nee marked for discipline. Napoleon was
ough, then, and ready, too. Now it is dis
onsolate and anything but aggressive. 1t
} closing it's eyes and sinking gradually
nder the insidious embrace OF the engulting
Vater.
There was an old gentleman, dressed in
omespun, and with frank, childish face,
7hich led one at once to like him, who was
mong those we encountered on the up
iver journey. His inseparable companion
1as white glass bottle, which this fresh
aced old gentleman filled with whisky
7henever opportunity offered. As soon as
Q had drank the bottle empty, he was in
- = 4: 1
70 boast was that Tin Arkansas, we kill
len without giving them time to pray"
he dreadful and remOrseless fashion in
'hich he would say this, when under the
aspiring influence Of the bottles late con-
,nts, was narrowing. When no whisky
as to be had, the fresh-faced old man was
lid in manner, shy and courteous; was,
ithal, full of wisdom. But in his cups he
as murderously inclined, and we could
OF help thinking that, perhaps, were it not
II the white glass bottle and its contents,
If. Who knows!
1t was curious to note the passive manner
18th which inhabitants all along shore stood
i'd meditatively regarded the boat, its |
'ew, its passengers and its engines. Placing
leir hands firmly in their pockets, and
curing comforta BILE lean against cotton
lie, a sugar hogshead or a tree, they lux
.iously gazed, and indolently said nothing.
here was no surprise in their manner. 1t
not likely that first class earthquake
ould have had any effect in unrooting
EN-. They seemed absolutely to grow to
g soil. They never sprang about in 1.-the, ,
gorous fashion, aiding and dispatcbing
9 tedious detail of loading and unloading
cir own goods; but they looked idly upon
g negro toilers, and emiled at their efforts
hen the grinning blacks overworked them
Ives.
1t was probably 60 thorough luxury to G