New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-03-28

! | I.se- Cu Gan TUu Dtii AoLcu VI IL
deepest Of them: when il rises fbot mo,
you can run another dozen: the next .Ot
will add a couple OF dozen. and so on: 6
| you ace you have to know your banks an
marks to dead moral certainty, and neve
get them mixed; for when you stal
through one of those cracks, there's u
backing ont again, as there IS IN the bs
iiver: you've got TO go through, or sta
:nero six months if JoG get caught on
| falling river. There are ah0u- htty q
| these cracks which yOn can't run at a.
except when the river is briin full and owe
| the banks'
This new lesson il q Cheerful. prospect.
| Cheerful enough. And mind what Nv
Just tod you; when you start into one o
those places you've got to go through. The
| are too narrow to turn around in, to
crooked to back out OF, and the shoar waite
ia always up at the dead: never elsewhere
| And the head of them is always likely TO b.
| filling up, little by little. 50 that the mark
You reckon their depth by, this season, ma.
not answer for next
Learn a new set, then. every year."
| Exactly. Cramp her up to the bar. VIVA
are you standing up through the middle o
| the river fGr!'
The next few months showed me strangs
| things. On the same day that we held the
| conversation above narrated, we met a grea
| rise coming down the river. The whole vast
| face of the stream was black with drifting
| dead logs, broken boughs, and great trees
| that had caved in and been washed away
| 1t required the incest steering to pick
ones way through this rushing raft. even
| IN the day time, when crossing from point
| to point; and at night the difficulty was
| nightly increased; every now and then a
huge log, lying deep in the water. would
suddenly appear right under our bows,
coming head-On: no use trying TO avoid it
them we could only stop the engines, and
one wheel would walk over that log from
one end to the other. keeping up thunder
ing racket and careening the boat in a way
that was very uncomfortable to passengers.
Now and then we would hit one of these
sunken logs rafting bang. dead in the
centre, with full head of steam, and it
would stun the boat as if she had hit con-
tinent Sometimes this Log would lodge
and stay right across our nose, and back
the Mississippi up before it; We would have
to do little craw fishing. then. to get away
from the obstruction. We often hit white
logs, IN the dark, for we could not see them
till we were right on them; but black log
is pretty distinct OBJ act at night. A white
snag is an ugly customer when the daylight
is gone.
OF course, on the great rise, down
came q swarm of proGis,Ous timber RATS
from the head waters Of the Mississippi,
coal barges from Pittsburg, little trad
ing scOws from everywhere. and brOadhorps
from "POsey county" Indiana, freighted
with "fruit and furniture"-the usual term
for describing it, though in plain English
the freight thus aggrandized was hooppoles
and pumpkins. Pilots bore mortal hatred
to these craft; and it was returned with
usury. The law required all such helpless
traders to keep light burning, but it was
a law that was often broken. All of sud-
den, on murky night. light would hop
up, right under our bows, almost, and an
agonized voice. with the backwoods
"whang' to it, would wall out:
''Whar n the - you goin' to- CANT
you see nothin,' you dash dashed aig suckin,'
one-eyed son Of Il stuffed
monkey"
Then for an instant, as we whistled
by, the red glare from our furnaces would
reveal the scOw and the form of the ges-
orator as if under a lightning
flash, and in that instant our fremen and
deck hands would send and receive tenn
pest of missiles and profanity, one of our
wheels would walk off with the crashing
fragments OF a steering oar, and down the
dead blackness would shut again. And
that fiatboatman would be sure to go into
New Orleans and sue our boat. swearing
stOutly that he mad light burning all the
time, when in truth his gang had the lantern
down below to sing and lie and drink and
gamble by, and no watch on deck. Once
at night, in one of those forest bordered
crevices (behind an island) which steam
boatmen intensely describe with the phrase
''as dark as the inside of cow" We should
have eaten up Posey county family, fruit,
furniture and all, but that they happened
to be hddling down below and we Just
caught the sound of the music in time to |
sheer Oft, doing no serious damage, unfortu-
lately, but coming so near it that we had |
good hopes for moment. These people |
brought up their lantern then, of course; and |
IS We backed and filled to get away, the pre-
'ious family stood in the light Of it-both |
'exes and various ages-and cursed US till |
turned blue Once q coal |
,oatman sent bullet through our pilot
house when we borrowed . sleering-oar of |
lin, in a very narrow place.
During this big rise these small fry craft |
we're an lntOlerable nuisance. We were
unning chute chute-a new world to me
md 1t there was particularly cramped
lace in chute, we would be pretty sure
o meet a broadhorn there; and if he failed
o be there, we would find him in still
Vorse locality. namely, the head of the
hute, on the shoal water. And then there
7ould be no end of profane cordialities
expressed.
Sometimes. in the big river. when we
7ould be feeling our way cautiously along
trough d fog, the deep hush would
g suddenly broken by yells and a clamor
tin pans, and all in an instant log raft
'ould appear vaguely through the webby
ell close upon US; and then We did not
ait to swap knives, but snatched our
lgine bells out by the roots and piled on
D the steam we had, to scramble out of
le way! One doesn't hit rock or a solid
e raft with a steamboat when he can get |
reused.
You will hardly believe It. but MANY
clerks always carried large |
ssortment OF religious tracts with them in |
lose Old departed steamboating days. |
ldeed they did Twenty times a day we
Ould be crainplng up around bar, while
string Of these small fry rascals were
'ifting down into the head of the bend
way abo'e and beyond us a couple of
lies. Now skiff would dart away from {
he OF them and come f thting its laborious
ay across the desert of water. 1t would
'ase all, in the shadow CT our forecastle,
I'd the painting Oarsmen would shout. !
iimme pa.a per-" as the skiff drifted !
'iftly astern. The clerk would throw :
'er file of New Orleans journals. Ii :
ese were picked up wiu.OM comment. q
u might notice that now dozen other 5
his had been drifting down upon us '
ithout saying anything. You understand,
ey had been wanting to see how No. +
As going to fare. No. l making no COM
emit, all the rest would bend to their oars
d come on, now; and as fast as they came :
o clerk would heave over peat bundles
religious tracts tied to shingles. The
,ount OF hard swearing which twelve '
ckages of religious literature will COM r
md when impartally divided up among :
elve raftsmen's crews, who have pulled a Il
avy skiff two miles on hot day to get v
,m is simply incredible. n
As have said, the big rise brought new t
rid under my vision. By the time the g
er WAS over It's banks we had forsaken | s.