The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1875-04-23

! And how about these chutes. Are
there many Of them!"
q: should say so. fancy we shan't
run any nf the river this trip as you've
ever seen il run before-so to speak
If the river begins to rise again, Well 90
up behind bars that you've l.gays seen
standing out of the river, high and dry
Ike the roof o! Il house; well cut across
low pllcr. iiIat You've never noticed at
all, right through the middle of bars
that cover fifty acres "f the river; we'll
creep through cracks where you've al
ways thought was solid; and well dart
through the woods ana leave twenty five
miles OF river of to one side; we'll see the
hind side OF every island between New
Orleans and Cairo"
''Ti~n I've got to 20 to work and learn
just a. much more river ns already
know"
Just :lbour iwict a. much more, as
near as you can cone at IT.
well, one lives to lind out. | think
was fool when went into this bust
ness"
eyes, that is true. Aud You are yet
But vou'lI not be when you've learned
| it."
''Ah, | never can learn it.
Il will see that you do"
by and by / ventured again:
/ 4 e.. a =. 81.
rs know the rest of the rivcr-shapes
and all-and so can run it at nightf'
eyes. And you've got 10 have good
| fair marks from one end of the river o
the other, that will help the bank tell
| you when there is water enough IA these
countless places-likc that stump you
know. When the river first begins to rise
| you can run half a dozen of the deepest
| of them; when il rises another foot more
you can run another dozen; the next foot
will add a couple of dozen, and so on;
! so you see you you have TO know your
| banks and marks to dead certainty,
and never get them mixed; for when you
no backing out again, as there is in the
igriver; you've got to 90 throus IN or stay
there six months, il you get caught on n
falling river. There are about fifty of
these cracks which you can't run at all
except when the river is brimfuIl and
over the hanks
''This new lesson is cheerful pros
pect."
Cheerful enough. And mind what
I've just told you; when you start into
one of those places you have got to 20
through. They are too narrow to turn
around ia, toe crooked to hack out of,
and the shoal water is always likely to he
filling up, little by little, so that the
marks you reckon their depth by this
season may not answer for NEXT"
Learn IL new set, then, every years.
Exactly. Cramp her up to the bar!
What are you standing up through the
middle Of the river for!"
The LcAt few months showed me
strange things. On the came day TINT
we held the conversation above narrat
| ed We met a great rise coming down the
| river. The whole vast face OF the stream
was black with drifting dead logs, bro
ken boughs ANA great trees that had
| cavcd in and been washed away. Ii re
! quired the incest steering 10 pick ones
way through this rushing craft, even in
| the day time, when crossing from point
to point. and at night the difficulty was
| nightly increased. every now and then
IA huge log, lying deep in the water,
would suddenly appear right under our
bows, coming head-on; no use to try TO
avoid it then; we could only stop the
engines, and one wheel would walk over
that log from one end to the other,
keeping up laundering racket and
carccnng the boat in a way that was
very uncomfortable 10 passengers. Now
and then We wouIi hit one of those
sunkrn log a rattling bang, dead in the
center, with IA fui! bead Uf steRln, and it
would stun the brat as If We had hit a
continent. Sometimes this log would
lodge and stay right across our nose,
and back the Mississippi up before it;
we would have to do IA little craw fishing
then, TO get away from the obstruction
We often hit white logs in the dark, for
we could not see them until we were
right OH them; but ii black log is pref
ty DISTINCT object at night. A white
snag is an ugly customer when the day
light is gone.
or course, on the great rise, down
came a swarm Of prVdigious timber RATS
from the head waters of the Mississippi,
coal barges from Pittsburg, little trading
scows from 'Posey County" Indiana,
freighted with ''fruit and furniture
the usual term for describing it, though
in English the freight thus aggrandized
was hoop-polrs and pumpkins. Pilots
bore mortal hatred to these crafts;
and il was returned with usury. The
law required all such helpless crafts TO
keep "a light burning. but it was n law
that was often broken. All of sud len
on murky night, light would hop up,
right under our bows, almost, and an
agonized voice, with the baekwoods
wlIang To it, would wall out:
''Whar'n the - you goin' to. Can't
you see nothin'. you dasl-dashed aig,
suckin', sheep-stcalin, one-eyed son oI
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
gasticuIating orator, as il under a light
ming flash, aai in that instant our fire.
men and deck-hands would send and re-.
oeive tempest OF missiles and profanity,
| one of our wheels would walk off will
the crashing fra gneuts of Il steering oar.
and down the dead lackness would shut
again. And the tlat-boatman would be
sure to go to New Orleans and sue our
beat, swearing stOutly that he had a
light burning all the time, when III truth
his gang had the lantern down below tC
sing, lie and gamble by, and no watch
on deck Once at night, in one of thos,
forest bordered crevices Cbehind an
island) which steamboatmen intensely
describe with the phrase 'tas dark as tn,
inside of cow" we should have eater
up a Posy County family, fruit, furnitur,
and all, but that they happened TO b,