The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1900-02-24
ON THH MISSISSIPPI.
Quaint Incidents of Travel Along
the Great River.
From the Ainslee's Magazine.

From the Ainslees Magazine.
Passenger service on the Mississippi river
is in fairly satisfactory condition. Be
tween st. Paul and St. Louis and from
there to New Orleans there are large and
well built craft, with comfortable state
rooms equipped with running water and
spring mattresses. Each steamer has a
long cabin extending from stem to stern,
where the tables are set for meals and
where the passengers dance in the evening
There are piano and sundry easy chairs.
It,eosts about as much on the boat per day
as it does at good lakeside hotel, so that
a passenger virtually has the pleasure of
travel for nothing. The chief difference
between the life on boat and that at a
summer hotel is that instead of viewing
the same prospect day after day from a
piazza you have view from the boat every
moment. The boat stops at every
town, so that the passenger may become
familiar with the urban as well as the coun-
try life of the valley.
The freight of the river is always taken
to and from the boat on the backs of negro
roustabouts. There has been no advance
in the manner of handling it since the
steamboats, first plowed the river. As soon
as the boat nose touches the shore the
gangplank is lowered, and seemingly
endless procession of negroes begins to move
back and forth, carrying on board the bags
of -four, which, on the northern portion Of
the river, often makes the bulk of the car
90. Plows, boxes, lumber and merchan-
disc are the other products. River lives
are much the same everywhere. The car
goes, however, are varied. They all pre-
sent a picture of 100 years ago.
At Memphis, from the bluffs to the wa
ter edge, is an immense inclined plane of
granite paving stones. In the center,
about 200 feet from the bluffs, runs wide
road the entire length of the levee and dis
appears among the compress factories and
oil mills, whose great bulks and tall chin
neys appear in the distance. Between
this road and the bluffs the levee is nearly
level. From here to the river is steep
descent. Above the road come and go
continually swift stream of cotton loads
and empty drays and great piles of small
cargoes to and from local jobbing houses.
Below it there are, during busy hours, a
conglomerate mass of drays, mules, cotton
bales, sacks of cotton seed, darkies and all
sorts of freight. Beyond is the long row
of steamers that line the shore, and in the
background sweep the waters of the Mis-
sissippi.
"The center of activity may be one
boat, such as the Big Sandy of the Mem
phis and Cincinnati line, just arrived,
bringing a cargo of 1000 cotton bales that
have been picked up along the river mouth.
The huge pile of boxes and furniture and
bags of cotton seed are being carried, one
piece at time, by long stream of lazy
darkies over the gang-plank into the bowels
of the big boat. There some laborers, re-
turning by way of the stage plank at the
prov, roll out before them the cotton bales
and file them in rows some distance up the
levee Above the din Of wheels rumbling
over the rough pavement drivers shout to
their stupid mules. There are picturesque
oaths and snatches of melody. Escaping
steam, shrill whistles, the creaking of load
ing and unloading freight and the below
ing of the overseers, who are, as rule,
active darkies with monstrous lungs and an
inexhaustible supply of big words, mingle
in busy confusion.