Year: 1875

night V'H Il Va


ayes. And yoH'ye got to have good
fair marks from one end Of the river
TO the other, that will help the bank
tell you when there is water enough
In each of these countless plaees-like
that stump, you know. When the
river first begins to rise you can run
balf dozen of the deepest OF them
when II rises foot more you can run
another dozen the next foot will add
a couple Of dozen, and so on so you
see you have to know your banks and
marks to a dead moral certainty, aud
never get them mixed ; for when you
start through one of those cracks,
there's no backing out again, as there
is in the big river A; you've got to go
through OF stay there six ;montlls If
you get caught on o falling river.
rhere are about fifty OF these cracks
which you csn't run at all except
when tie river is brim full and over
the banks"


"This new lesson is cheerful pros
peet."


"Cheerful enough. And mind what
I've j1st toll you; when you get
into one of those places you've got TO
90 through. They are too narrow to
turn around in, too crooked to back
out of, and the sboai water is always
up at the head never elsewhere. And
the head OF them is always likely to be
filling up, little by little, SO that the
marks you reckon their depth by, this
season, may rot answer for next"


"Learn new set. then, every
year ?fH -EH ~ - a.


"ExactIy. CramP her1p ts thebar!
What are standipg apS thFpugh the
middle OF the river for?s 2 =


The next few months showed me
strange things. On the same day
that we held the conversation above
narrated we met q great 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 nicest
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 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 en-
gines, and one wheel would walk over
that log from one end to the other,
keeping up laundering racket aud
careening the boat in way that was
very uncomfortable to passengers.
Now and then We would hit one of
these sunken logs rafting bang,
dead in the center, with full head of
steam, aud it would stun the boat as
if she had nit q continent. Some
times this log would lodge and stay
right across our nose, and back the
Mississippi up before it; We would
have to do little crawfshing, 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 a black log is a
pretty distinct object at night. A
white snag ID an ugly customer when
the daylight isgone.


OF course. on the great rise, down
came q swarm OF prodigious tim ber-
RATS from the head waters of the
Mississippi, coal b2rges from Pittsburg,
little trading scows from everywhere,
and broad-horns from "Posey Coun-
ty," Indiana, freighted with ''fruit
and furniture"-the usual term for
describing it, though in English the
freight this aggrandiZed was hoop
poles and pumpkins. Pilots bore
a 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 law
that was often broken. All of sud
den, on a murky night, a light would
hop up, right under our bows, almost,
and an agoniZed voice, with the back
woods "whang" to it, would wall
out; - So


i'War' n the AyougOin, to- Cai'nt
you see nOttfn', you dash-dashed aig-
suckin', sheep-stealin', one-eyed son
OF a stuffed monkeym ~ -


Then for an instant, Us we whistled
by, the red glare from our furnaces
would reveal the scow and the form
of the gesticulating orator as if under
lightning flash, and in that instant
our fireman and deck hands would
send and receive a tempest 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 fiatbOatmen would be sure
to go to New Orleans and sue our boat
swearing stoutly that he had q light
burning all the time, when in truth
his gang had the lantern down below
to sing and lie and drink and gamble
by, aud no watch on. deck. Once, at
night, in one of those fOrest-b0rdeIed
crevices (behind an. island) which
steambOatmen intensely describe with
the phrase 'as dark as the inside OF a
cow" we should have eaten up PO-
sey county family, fruit, furniture and
ali, but that they happened to be tid-
ding down below and we just caught
the sound Of the music in time to
sheer off, doing no serious damage.
unfortunately, but coming SO near it
that we had good hopes for a Iho-
ment. These people brought up their
lantern, then, OF course; and as we
backed and filled to get away, the
precious family stood in the light Of it
both sexes and various ages and
cursed Us till everything turned blue.
Once c0RlbOatmen sent a bullet
through our pilothouse when we bOr-
rowed a steering-Oar Of him, in a very
narrow place.


1 During this big rise these small-fry
craft were an intolerable nuisance.
We were running chute after chute
a new world to me-and if there
was particularly cramped place in q
chute, We would be pretty sure to
meet a brOad-hOrn there; and If he
failed to be there, we found him in a
still worse locality, namely, the head
of the chute, on the shoal water. And
then there would be no end of the
profane cordialities exchanged.


Sometimes, in the big river, when
we would be feeling our way cautious
ly along through fog, the deep hush
would suddenly be broken by yells
and clamOr of tin pans, and al in
an instant 3 log raft would appear
vaguely through the webby veil, close
upon us; and then we did not wait q
swap knives, but snatched our engine
bells out by the roots and piled on al


the steam we he'd, to scramble out Ol
the war! One doesn't hit rock or 4
solid log raft with steamboat when


he can get excused. fTEk


You will hardly believeit, butmany
Steamboat clerks always, carried 3
large assortnsnt of religious tract:


with them in those old departed
steamboating days. Indeed they did


Twenty times a day we would bS


cramping up around bar, while s


string of those small-fry rascals wer.


drifting down into the head of tht


bend away above and beyond us {
couple of miles. Now q skiff WouiC
dart away from one of them ans


come fighting its laborious way across


the desert of water. 1t would 'eass


ALL in the shadow of our forecastle


and the painting oarsmen would shout
aGiume 5 ps-a-per 90 as the skif
drifted swiftly astern. The clerl
. would throw over file of New Or
leans Journals. If these were picked
M suithout comment, you might no


tice that now a dozen other skiffs has
been drifting down upon US withOu


saving anything. You understand
they had been waiting to see how No


l was going TO fare. No. making N
, comment, all the rest would bend q
their oars and come on, now and a
T as fast as they came the clerk wou,
beaye over neat bundles of religion


tracts tied to shingles. The amour


of hard swearing which twelve packa
T ges of religious literature will com