Chapter IV: Part 4

Here and there through the cave there are immense pits or chasms, only some few yards in circumference, but from two to three hundred feet in depth. A piece of paper saturated in oil is thrown down and displays the fearful gulf, the bottom of which appears to have the same formation of rock and clay as the top. Sometimes we ascended ten or twenty feet by ladders and occasionally descended. We traversed about a mile of passage where the ceiling, six feet high, was as smooth and white as plaster could have made it. It was literally covered with the names of former visitors. In some places there were hundreds of cards on the floor, left by guests,--so it is not only English people who have a mania for inscribing their names. Indeed, as to that, it is common to most nations, for I had a secretary named Van Kenkle, who wrote his name upon every article belonging to me.

For eight or nine miles we continued to traverse passages and chambers, sometimes over rough pieces of rock, sometimes through the thick dust of ages, sometimes through the tortuous gorges,--mere slits between the rocks through which we had to creep,--sometimes coming upon a well or spring of sweet water. At about three or four miles from the mouth we came to the chamber called "The Church," from its resemblance to the ancient cathedral vault, frequently to be seen on the European continent under churches or monasteries, and called the crypt.

This church of the Mammoth Cave is a singular phenomenon. The roof, which is not lofty, is supported by a number of pillars, in many places forming Gothic arches, and running at somewhat regular distances, dividing the church into aisles. These columns are actually enormous stalactites, and the fresco of petrified water upon them has all the appearance of the most rich and elaborate carving. In some places the pillars of stone have not quite reached the ground, and remain suspended from the roof. Other and smaller condensed stalactites resembled the drooping rosettes which unite the spring of Gothic arches. In one portion of the church is an enormous stone, carved out exactly like the bishop's chair, or throne, usually seen on the high altar. The altar itself is very like those primitive stone edifices sculptured by the early Christians, when driven to celebrate their worship in the catacombs of Rome.

This chamber is a marvellous freak of nature imitating art, for the hand of man has never touched it or worked it into shape; yet if any one were transported here unconsciously, he would, on looking round, imagine himself in the chancel crypt of some old cathedral of the ninth or tenth century. Some romantic lovers, evidently influenced by this idea, had actually, a few weeks before our visit, arrived at the cave, accompanied by their friends and the clergyman, and caused the marriage ceremony to be performed in that very church. It was a whimsical idea, and must have been a cold, comfortless, clammy affair; but the feelings and sentiment about weddings totally differ in America from our European notions on the subject,--rarely is it a joyous merry-making, rather the reverse, as I have mentioned in a former chapter.

A few miles farther on, we came to the great natural marvel, the subterranean river, with its buried water and eyeless fish, its beautiful parterres of stone flowers and shrubs, like a garden covered with morning hoar-frost. On this dismal river we were launched in a little skiff, not the most seaworthy in the world,--and I must confess to having experienced a feeling of dread of being upset on that mysterious stream, whose outlet might be, for all we knew, in a region we did not care to visit, or even to contemplate the possibility of visiting. The echo had a thrill of awe that made one's flesh creep and hair stand on end. If one called spirits there from the vasty deep, and they did not come, yet they certainly answered from the dark shadows of the rocks falling around the lurid glare of the torches,--the only light on the river of Erebus. It was quite easy to believe there were myriads of spirits flitting around, and stretching out their weird arms to carry us down to bottomless Hades.

There is another very interesting cave, which is not so frequently visited by travellers, who when they have seen _the big thing_, are only anxious to rush away again. It is not so extensive as the Mammoth, but infinitely more beautiful and more inaccessible, the descent having to be accomplished by ladders; but once down, it is a fairy-land, a continuous scene of rapturous enchantment. The stalactites simulate the most exquisite parterre of flowers, the most magnificent forest of crystallized trees, the most wondrous marble carving, even to that perfection of art which shrouds the figure in transparent drapery, like "the statue of the Dead Christ" at Naples; nor was Apollo's charm unknown there. Our guide tapped upon these magic crystals, and produced the sweetest harmony ear ever heard, or at least it sounded so.

The walls of the chambers and passages were encrusted with the stalactite flowers. They could be broken off their stems, and as so few visitors ventured down, the guide allowed me to take one. One chamber was absolutely curtained with this marvellous formation of petrified water, and when the guide held the light behind the scene, it produced the effect of being draped in the purest amber. These drooping curtains, some fifty feet in height, emitted the most musical tones when struck. If the physician had brought his patients to these fairy bowers, he might, I think, have succeeded in sending them home quite cured, but I believe the cave had not been discovered then.

With a brilliant light the spot was perfectly lovely, and the atmosphere was that of constant, unchanged temperature, which puts the human lungs in a state of beatitude. I should not in the least object to live in that paradise of crystal flowers and adamantine forms, the most beautiful that the imagination of man has ever conceived to be curtained in living amber, and pillowed--well, I must admit that--in dust; but it was such _clean_ dust.... The texture of these stalactites, when examined by daylight, resembles alabaster, thus the leaves, flowers, sprigs, are perfectly beautiful. Nor are these caves without their incidents of life's drama. The grave and the gay have been enacted here as elsewhere. The episode of the physician and his patients was sad enough, but a more terrible tragedy resulted from a wager.

The guides are particular on entering the caves with a large party to beg them to keep together, as it would be impossible for a person to find his own way out of the labyrinth of passages, chambers, etc. Two gentlemen of a party made a bet that they would accomplish the feat, and, taking their opportunity, slipped away from their party, without the guides being aware of their absence, and it was not until late in the evening that the other party to the wager remarked that those two foolhardy fellows had not found their way out of the cavern. This coming to the ears of the guide, he exclaimed, "Then they are dead men!" Nevertheless they went in full force to do everything that was possible to find them, but spent the night in vain searches. Sometimes they came upon their track in the soft dust, then lost it again.

On the following day the search was renewed by the guide who had escorted the party, and his description of the finding of one of the gentlemen was truly horrible: "It was the most tarnation cutting up job I ever had in my life," said the guide. "We are not much of cowards, we guides,--we get accustomed to awfulness down in the bowels of the earth; but when that _critter's_ shrieks first came to my ear, I just shivered all over and my feet rooted to the ground,--not that I did not wish to save him, the poor devil, but I got an idea that that shriek came right straight from hell and no mistake, and I had no fancy to go there before I was sent for! Wall, when I had wiped my brow and taken a drink, I went on in the direction of the sound, for it came every now and again, the echoes making like fifty devils instead of one. I found him sooner than I expected; he was a sight to behold; he flew at me like a tiger; he clutched me, and pulled me, and wrestled with me, yelling and howling like a wild beast. I thought he would have torn me to pieces. I should not have known him again for the same gentleman. His eyes glared, his mouth was foaming, and his hair on end, his clothes all torn and covered with dust. He was a real raving maniac, and so he remained, as far as I know. The work I had to get him out of that cave! He would stand stock still and shake all over, then suddenly clutch at me again. I was the stronger man of the two, and he was weak from long fasting, or I never should have got him out. The doctor said he was fright-stricken."

And this was the case, as they thought, with the other poor fellow, who was not found for weeks, it having been conjectured that he had fallen down a hole. One of the guides making some new exploration, discovered him sitting down, no sign of decomposition having taken place, and no sign of his having died of starvation, for a piece of biscuit was found in his pocket. He was supposed to have died of terror, the terrible darkness working upon the nervous system, and the hopelessness of penetrating it making the minutes appear hours. A guide who had once been lost there himself for some twenty hours, said he never could believe he had not been there for several days.

DOWN THE OHIO AND MISSISSIPPI.

THOMAS L. NICHOLS.

["Forty Years of American Life," by Dr. Thomas L. Nichols, is
the source of the following selection, which gives a graphic
and interesting picture of steamboat life on the great rivers
of the West in the days before the war. It needs only one thing
to complete the story, the race and the explosion, which was
no uncommon incident at that period, but an example of which,
fortunately for our author, was not among his experiences.]

We embarked on a little steamboat which drew twelve inches of water, and whose single wide paddle-wheel was at the stern, and extended the whole width of the hull. A succession of dams made the river navigable at that season of low water, and at each dam we were let down by a lock to a lower level. At the high stage of water dams and locks are all buried deep beneath the surface, and larger steamboats go careering over them.

What I best remember, in crossing the Alleghanies and descending this river, were the beds of coal. It seemed to be everywhere just below the surface. We saw it along the route, where the people dug the fuel for their fires out of a hole in the yard, ten feet from the door. Along the high perpendicular banks of the river there were strata of coal ten or twelve feet thick. Men were digging it down with picks and sliding it into flat-boats, which, when the river rose, would float down with the current to Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, and New Orleans. These frail boats--long boxes made of deal boards nailed together, and loaded nearly to the top--would many of them be lost. The swell of a passing steamboat, or a snag or a sawyer in the river, would sink them. They would ground on sand-bars. A sudden hurricane sometimes sinks a hundred of them. Perhaps a third of the whole number are lost, but the coal costs almost nothing--three halfpence a bushel--and brings a price proportional to the distance which it floats in safety.

At Pittsburg, a city of coal and iron, smoky and grimy as Newcastle or Birmingham, we took a larger boat, but still a small one, for Cincinnati. The Ohio was very low. We passed slowly down, getting pleasant glimpses of the towns upon its banks, and especially of the flourishing cities of Cincinnati and Louisville.

I was disappointed with the Ohio for a few hundred miles from its source, most unreasonable tourist that I was. I recall whatever I may have said to its disparagement. The Ohio, charming in all its course of a thousand miles, becomes grandly beautiful below Louisville for the lower half of its course. Were it but deep as well as broad and splendid in its great reaches and graceful curves and picturesque banks, nothing would be wanting to its pleasing souvenirs. But I have tried its current at an unfortunate period,--the river at its lowest point. At its highest it would be fifty feet deeper,--a great torrent pouring onward towards the sea.

We were all of us in high spirits on the "Fort Wayne." The crew was firing up, and singing merrily below; and in the cabin we were sitting round our good coal-fire, chatting, reading, and some playing poker, calculating the next morning but one to wake upon the Mississippi. So passed we down merrily, until, sunk upon a bar, we saw the wreck of the steamboat "Plymouth," which two nights before had been run into by another boat, which sunk her instantly, and her deck-passengers woke up under the waters of the Ohio. Twenty unfortunates were drowned; and our passengers, accustomed to the river, spoke of it with perfect indifference, as a very common affair.

We passed this bar safely, touching bottom indeed, as we often did; but in passing over the next we grounded firm and fast. The engines were worked at their greatest power, but in vain. Efforts were made all day to get the boat off, but without moving her, and older voyagers began to tell pleasant stories of boats lying for three weeks on a sand-bar, and getting out of provisions and wood. For us passengers there was but patience, but for captain and crew there was a hard night's work in a cold November rain. They went at it heartily, and when we woke up in the morning the steamboat was afloat, and as soon as she had got in a fresh supply of wood we went merrily down the Ohio again, putting off by a day our arrival at the Father of Waters. So we went, talking on morals and politics, reading the "Wandering Jew," and playing poker, until dinner came; and just after dinner we came to another bar, on which we ran as before, giving our crew a second night of hardship and toil, and us a more thorough disgust of low-water navigation. We got off by morning as before, by great exertion and the steady use of effective machinery, the boat being hoisted over the bar inch by inch by the aid of great spars, blocks, and windlass.

There was still, but a short distance below this spot, the worst bar of all to pass.... Having been twice aground and lost nearly two days, our captain determined to take every precaution. He hired a flat-boat, into which were discharged many tons of whiskey and butter, and which was lashed alongside. A boat was sent down to sound the channel and lay buoys. This done, just as breakfast was ready, all the male passengers were summoned to go on board the flat-boat, fastened alongside, with the butter and whiskey, so as to lighten the steamer as much as possible, and when we were all aboard we started down. As luck would have it, the current carried the boat a few feet out of her proper course, and she stuck fast again. The wheels could not move her, and we jumped on board again to eat our breakfast, now grown cold from waiting.

This despatched, we went out on the promenade deck, and to our chagrin saw the "Louis Philippe," which left Louisville one day behind us, coming down, looking light and lofty, with a flat-boat alongside. She came down rapidly, and passed close by us, her passengers laughing in triumph at our predicament. The "Louis Philippe" had not got her length below us before she too stuck fast and swung round into a more difficult position, lying broadside upon the bar, with the strong current full against her. The laugh was now on our side, and the "Louis Philippe" gave rise to the more jokes, because her hurricane-deck was entirely covered with cabbages, with their stumps sticking up, giving her a droll appearance, while our hurricane-deck was filled with chicken-coops. It was time now to go to work in earnest. More freight was discharged into our lighter, and all the passengers, except the women and children, were sent on board her. We thickly covered the barrels of whiskey and kegs of butter, and the captain, to keep us off the steamer, cast us loose, and we floated off with the current, and were safely blown ashore on the Kentucky side, about a mile below, leaving the two steamers above to get off as soon as they were able.

When our flat-boat touched the Kentucky bank of the river, her ninety passengers jumped joyfully ashore, and with noisy hilarity scattered along the beach. The morning was beautiful. The clear sunlight glittered upon the river and lighted up the forest with golden radiance. The sky was blue, and the air cool and bracing. The land was high, well wooded, and fertile. Seeing a substantial-looking double log house a short distance from the river, about a dozen of us went up to warm our fingers at its fire....

In a few moments our lucky boat swung round and came down for us, leaving the less fortunate "Louis Philippe" to get off as she could, and her passengers to learn not to halloo before they got out of the wood. And now--now, by the first light of the morning for this grand, this terrible Mississippi!

It was a misty moonlight night when we came to the confluence of the Ohio with the Mississippi. We had come down a tedious, and in some degree a perilous, course of one thousand miles; we had still a thousand miles to go before arriving at New Orleans, which is the next stage of our Southern journey.

The Mississippi and the Ohio come together at an acute angle, and their waters flow down in unmingled currents, differing in color, for a long distance. Even at night we could distinguish the line which divides them. The Ohio water is filled with fine sand and loam; the Mississippi is discolored with clay besides, and the water looks like a tub of soapsuds after a hard day's washing.

Whoever looks upon the map with a utilitarian eye sees at the confluence of these great rivers a favorable point for a great city. A few years since an English company took possession of or purchased this site, and, with a capital of nearly a million of pounds sterling, commenced operations. They lithographed plans of the city and views of the public buildings. There were domes, spires, and cupolas, hotels, warehouses, and lines of steamboats along both rivers. How fair, how magnificent it all looked on the India paper! You should see the result as I saw it in the misty miasma, by the pale moonlight. Cairo is a swamp, overflowed by every rise of either river. The large hotel, one of the two buildings erected, is slowly sinking beneath the surface. Piles will not stand up, and, however deep they are driven, sink still deeper. The present business of the place, consisting of selling supplies to steamboats, and transferring passengers from the down- to the up-river boats, is done on floating store-boats, made fast to the shore. Cairo has since been built into a considerable town by dyking out the rivers, and was an important naval and military point during the Civil War....

This is my thirteenth day of steamboating,--the usual time across the Atlantic,--and I have four days more at least. You may well suppose that a hundred passengers are put to their trumps for amusement. The "Wandering Jew" did very well as long as it lasted. Some keep on reading novels, having laid in a stock or exchanged with other passengers, but cards are the resource of the majority. The centre-tables, as soon as breakfast is over, are occupied with parties playing poker or loo, and are covered with bank-notes and silver. Many who do not play look on to see the frolics of fortune. Several of these players are professional gamesters, and quite cool, as men who hope to win by chance or skill ought to be. Others, in their flushing cheeks and trembling hands and voices, show how the passion is fastening upon them. These are driven by weariness and tempted by the smallness of the game to commence playing. The passion increases day by day, and so do the stakes, until, before reaching New Orleans, the verdant ones have lost all their money, and with it their self-respect and their confidence in the future. Depressed by shame, disheartened at being in a strange city without money, they are in a miserable condition, and ready to throw themselves away. They become dependent upon the blacklegs who have led them on, are instructed in their evil courses, made their tools and catspaws, and perhaps induced to enter upon courses of crime of a more dangerous character. All this comes of playing cards to kill time on the Mississippi.

While those who need the excitement of betting play at games of bluff and poker, some amuse themselves with whist, and old-fashioned fellows get into a corner and have a bout at old sledge; and now at eleven o'clock the great cabin of our boat presents a curious appearance. Playing around the tables, with noisy, joyous laughter, are half a dozen merry little boys and girls. These have all got well acquainted with each other, and seem to enjoy themselves thoroughly.

I can give you little idea of this portion of the Mississippi. The river is very low, and does not seem large enough to be the outlet of the thousand streams above; for the waters on which we float come not only from the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains, but there are mingled with them the bright springs of Western New York, a large part of Pennsylvania, part of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and a large portion of the Western States. Yet, with all the waters of this vast area, our boat can sometimes scarcely keep the channel. Last night, running at her full speed, she went crashing into a snag, with a concussion and scraping which woke us all up, and made the timid ones spring out of their berths. Our safety was in our going down-stream instead of up,--the difference of rubbing the back of a hedgehog the right and the wrong way. These snags are great trees which cave off and are washed down the current; the roots become embedded in the bottom; and the stem and branches, pointing down-stream, and half or wholly covered with water, form a terrible _steamboat de frise_, which tears an ascending steamboat to pieces, but generally allows those going with the current to pass over or through them with safety.

The river is full of islands, so that you often see but a small portion of its waters; it winds along in so many convolutions that you must steam a hundred miles often to make twenty in a straight line. Many of these bends may be avoided at high water by taking the cross cuts, called "running a _chute_" when the whole country for twenty miles on each side is submerged.

Usually, on one side or the other, there is a perpendicular bank of clay and loam some thirty feet high, and here and there are small plantations. The river gradually wears them off, carrying down whole acres in a season. From this bank the land descends back to the swamps which skirt nearly the whole length of the river. These in very low water are comparatively dry, but as the river rises they fill up, and the whole country is like a great lake, filled with a dense growth of timber. These curving banks, the rude and solitary huts of the wood-cutters, the vast bars of sand, covered gradually with cane-brake, and the range of impenetrable forest for hundreds of miles, comprise a vast gloomy landscape, which must be seen to be realized....

While the scene is fresh in my memory let me describe to you my last morning upon the Mississippi. But why do I speak thus of a scene which can never fade from my remembrance, but in all future years will glow the brightest picture which nature and civilization have daguerreotyped upon my heart?

I rose before the sun, while all the east was glowing with his refracted light. The steamboat had made excellent progress all night, not being obliged to stop by fog, and was only detained a short time by running plump into the mud on the river's bank; but she soon backed out of that scrape.

We had here, fifty miles above New Orleans, an almost tropical sunrise. The Mississippi, as if tired of its irregularities, flowed on an even current between its low banks, along which on each side are raised embankments of earth from four to ten feet in height,--the levee, which extends for hundreds of miles along the river, defending the plantations from being overflowed at high water.

As I gained the hurricane-deck the scene was enchanting, and, alas! I fear indescribable. On each side, as far as the eye could reach, were scattered the beautiful houses of the planters, flanked on each side by the huts of their negroes, with trees, shrubbery, and gardens. For miles away, up and down the river, extended the bright green fields of sugar-cane, looking more like great fields of Indian corn than any crop to which a Northern eye is familiar, but surpassing that in vividness of the tints and density of growth, the cane growing ten feet high, and the leaves at the top covering the whole surface. Back of these immense fields of bright green were seen the darker shades of the cypress swamp, and, to give the most picturesque effect to the landscape, on every side, in the midst of each great plantation, rose the tall white towers of the sugar-mills, throwing up graceful columns of smoke and clouds of steam. The sugar-making process was in full operation.

After the wild desolation of the Mississippi, for more than half its course below the Ohio, you will not wonder that I gazed upon this scene of wealth and beauty in a sort of ecstasy. Oh! how unlike our November in the far, bleak north was this scene of life in Louisiana! The earth seemed a paradise of fertility and loveliness. The sun rose and lighted up with a brighter radiance a landscape of which I had not imagined half its beauty.

The steamer stopped to wood, and I sprang on shore. Well, the air was as soft and delicious as our last days in June,--the gardens were filled with flowers; yes, bushels of roses were blooming for those who chose to pluck them; while oranges were turning their green to gold, and figs were ripening in the sun. It was a Creole plantation,--French the only language heard. A procession of carts, each drawn by a pair of mules, and driven by a fat and happy negro, who seemed to joke with every motion and laugh all over from head to foot, came from the sugar-house to get wood, of which an immense quantity was lying upon the banks of the river, saved from the vast mass of forest trees washed down at every freshet.

I cannot describe the appropriateness of everything on these plantations. These Creole planters look as if nature had formed them for good masters; in any other sphere they are out of their element,--here most decidedly at home. The negroes, male and female, seem made on purpose for their masters, and the mules were certainly made on purpose for the negroes. Any imaginable change would destroy this harmonious relation. Do they not all enjoy alike this paradise,--this scene of plenty and enchantment? The negroes work and are all the better for such beneficial exercise, as they would be all the worse without it. They have their feasts, their holidays,--more liberty than thousands of New York mechanics enjoy in their lifetimes, and a freedom from care and anxiety which a poor white man never knows. I begin to think that Paradise is on the banks of the Mississippi, and that the nearest approach to the realization of the schemes of Fourier is on our Southern plantations.

FROM NEW ORLEANS TO RED RIVER.

FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED.

[We have given a descriptive sketch of steamboat travel down
the Ohio and Mississippi in the first half of the century, in
what we may almost call the days of the barbarians. It is here
followed by a sketch of steamboating, from New Orleans to and
up the Red River, in the ante-war period, in which will be
found methods as unprogressive and people as uncivilized as in
any period of modern travel. The getting off was a marvel of
procrastination, worthy of the most primitive days of American
travel.]

On a certain Saturday morning, when I had determined on the trip, I found that two boats, the "Swamp Fox" and the "St. Charles," were advertised to leave the same evening for the Red River. I went to the levee, and finding the "St. Charles" to be the better of the two, I asked her clerk if I could engage a state-room. There was just one state-room berth left unengaged; I was requested to place my name against its number on the passenger book; and did so, understanding that it was thus secured for me.

Having taken leave of my friends, I had my luggage brought down, and went on board at half-past three,--the boat being advertised to sail at four. Four o'clock passed, and freight was still being taken on,--a fire had been made in the furnace, and the boat's big bell was rung. I noticed that the "Swamp Fox" was also firing up, and that her bell rang whenever ours did,--though she was not advertised to sail till five. At length, when five o'clock came, the clerk told me he thought, perhaps, they would not be able to get off at all that night,--there was so much freight still to come on board. Six o'clock arrived, and he felt certain that, if they did get off that night, it would not be till very late. At half-past six he said the captain had not come on board yet, and he was quite sure they would not be able to get off that night. I prepared to return to the hotel, and asked if they would leave in the morning. He thought not. He was confident they would not. He was positive they could not leave now before Monday,--Monday noon. Monday at twelve o'clock,--I might rely upon it.

Monday morning the _Picayune_ stated, editorially, that the floating palace, the "St. Charles," would leave for Shreveport at five o'clock, and if anybody wanted to make a quick and luxurious trip up Red River with a jolly good soul, Captain Lickup was in command. It also stated, in another paragraph, that if any of its friends had any business up Red River, Captain Pitchup was a whole-souled veteran in that trade, and was going up with that remarkably low-draught favorite, the "Swamp Fox," to leave at four o'clock that evening. Both boats were also announced, in the advertising columns, to leave at four o'clock.

As the clerk had said noon, however, I thought there might have been a misprint in the newspaper announcements, and so went on board the "St. Charles" again before twelve. The clerk informed me that the newspaper was right,--they had finally concluded not to sail until four o'clock. Before four I returned again, and the boat again fired up, and rung her bell. So did the "Swamp Fox." Neither, however, was quite ready to leave at four o'clock. Not quite ready at five. Even at six--not yet quite ready. At seven, the fires having burned out in the furnace, and the stevedores having gone away, leaving a quantity of freight yet on the dock, without advising this time with the clerk, I had my baggage re-transferred to the hotel.

A similar performance was repeated on Tuesday.

On Wednesday I found the berth I had engaged occupied by a very strong man, who was not very polite when I informed him that I believed there was some mistake,--that the berth he was using had been engaged to me. I went to the clerk, who said that he was sorry, but that, as I had not stayed on board that night, and had not paid for the berth, he had not been sure that I should go, and he had, therefore, given it to the gentleman who now had it in possession, and whom, he thought, it would not be best to try to reason out of it. He was very busy, he observed, because the boat was going to start at four o'clock; if I would now pay him the price of passage, he would do the best he could for me. When he had time to examine, he would probably put me in some other state-room, perhaps quite as good a one as that I had lost. Meanwhile, he kindly offered me the temporary use of his private state-room. I inquired if it was quite certain that the boat would get off at four; for I had been asked to dine with a friend at three o'clock. There was not the smallest doubt of it,--at four they would leave. They were all ready at that moment, and only waited till four because the agent had advertised that they would,--merely a technical point of honor.

But, by some error of calculation, I suppose, she didn't go at four. Nor at five. Nor at six.

At seven o'clock the "Swamp Fox" and the "St. Charles" were both discharging dense smoke from their chimneys, blowing steam, and ringing bells. It was obvious that each was making every exertion to get off before the other. The captains of both boats stood at the break of the hurricane-deck, apparently waiting in great impatience for the mails to come on board.

The "St. Charles" was crowded with passengers, and her decks were piled high with freight. Bumboatmen, about the bows, were offering shells, and oranges, and bananas; and newsboys, and peddlers, and tract distributors were squeezing about with their wares among the passengers. I had confidence in their instinct; there had been no such numbers of them the previous evenings, and I made up my mind, although past seven o'clock, that the "St. Charles" would not let her fires go down again.

Among the peddlers there were two of cheap "literature," and among their yellow covers each had two or three copies of the cheap edition (pamphlet) of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." They did not cry it out as they did the other books they had, but held it forth among others, so that its title could be seen. One of them told me he carried it because gentlemen often inquired for it, and he sold a good many; at least three copies were sold to passengers on the boat....

It was twenty minutes after seven when the captain observed,--scanning the levee in every direction to see if there was another cart or carriage coming towards us,--"No use waiting any longer, I reckon: throw off, Mr. Heady." (The "Swamp Fox" did not leave, I afterwards heard, till the following Saturday.)

We backed out, winded round head up, and as we began to breast the current, a dozen of the negro boat-hands, standing on the freight piled up on the low forecastle, began to sing, waving hats and handkerchiefs, and shirts lashed to poles, towards the people who stood on the sterns of the steamboats at the levee.

After losing a few lines, I copied literally into my note-book:

"Ye see dem boat way dah ahead.
Chorus.--Oahoiohieu.
De San Charles is arter 'em, dey mus' go behine.
Oahoiohieu.
So stir up dah, my livelies, stir her up.
Oahoiohieu.
Dey's burnin' not'n but fat and rosum.
Oahoiohieu.
Oh, we is gwine up de Red River, oh!
Oahoiohieu.
Oh, we mus' part from you dah asho'.
Oahoiohieu.
Gib my lub to Dinah, oh!
Oahoiohieu."...

The wit introduced into these songs has, I suspect, been rather over-estimated.

As soon as the song was ended, I went into the cabin to remind the clerk to obtain a berth for me. I found two brilliant supper-tables reaching the whole length of the long cabin, and a file of men standing on each side of both of them, ready to take seats as soon as the signal was given.

The clerk was in his room, with two other men, and appeared to be more occupied than ever. His manner was, I thought, now rather cool, not to say rude; and he very distinctly informed me that every berth was occupied, and he didn't know where I was to sleep. He judged I was able to take care of myself; and if I was not, he was quite sure he had too much to do to give all his time to my surveillance. I then went to the commander, and told him that I thought myself entitled to a berth. I had paid for one, and should not have taken passage in the boat if it had not been promised me. I was not disposed to fight for it, particularly as the gentleman occupying the berth engaged to me was a deal bigger fellow than I, and also carried a bigger knife, but I thought the clerk was accountable to me for a berth, and I begged that he would inform him so. He replied that the clerk probably knew his business; he had nothing to do with it; and walked away from me. I then addressed myself to a second clerk, or sub-officer of some denomination, who more good-naturedly informed me that half the company were in the same condition as myself, and I needn't be alarmed, cots would be provided for us.

As I saw that the supper-table was likely to be crowded, I asked if there would be a second table. "Yes, they'll keep on eating till they all get through." I walked the deck till I saw those who had been first seated at the table coming out; then, going in, I found the table still crowded, while many stood waiting to take seats as fast as any were vacated. I obtained one for myself at length, and had no sooner occupied it than two half-intoxicated and garrulous men took the adjoining stools.

It was near nine o'clock before the tables were cleared away, and immediately afterwards the waiters began to rig a framework for sleeping-cots in their place. These cots were simply canvas shelves, five feet and a half long, two wide, and less than two feet apart, perpendicularly. A waiter, whose good will I had purchased at the supper-table, gave me a hint to secure one of them for myself, as soon as they were erected, by putting my hat in it. I did so, and saw that others did the same. I chose a cot as near as possible to the midship door of the cabin, perceiving that there was not likely to be the best possible air, after all the passengers were laid up for the night in this compact manner.

Nearly as fast as the cots were ready they were occupied. To make sure that mine was not stolen from me, I also, without much undressing, laid myself away. A single blanket was the only bedclothing provided. I had not lain long before I was driven, by an exceedingly offensive smell, to search for a cleaner neighborhood; but I found all the cots, fore and aft, were either occupied or engaged. I immediately returned, and that I might have a _dernier ressort_, left my shawl in that I had first obtained.

In the forward part of the cabin there was a bar, a stove, a table, and a placard of rules, forbidding smoking, gambling, or swearing in the cabin, and a close company of drinkers, smokers, card-players, and constant swearers. I went out, and stepped down to the boiler-deck. The boat had been provided with very poor wood, and the firemen were crowding it into the furnaces whenever they could find room for it, driving smaller sticks between the larger ones at the top by a battering-ram method.

Most of the firemen were Irish born; one with whom I conversed was English. He said they were divided into three watches, each working four hours at a time, and all hands liable to be called, when wooding, or landing, or taking on freight, to assist the deck-hands. They were paid now but thirty dollars a month--ordinarily forty, and sometimes sixty--and board. He was a sailor bred. This boat-life was harder than seafaring, but the pay was better, and the trips were short. The regular thing was to make two trips, and then lay up for a spree. It would be too hard on a man, he thought, to pursue it regularly; two trips "on end" was as much as a man could stand. He must then take a "refreshment." Working this way for three weeks, and then refreshing for about one, he did not think it was unhealthy, no more than ordinary seafaring. He concluded by informing me that the most striking peculiarity of the business was that it kept a man, notwithstanding wholesale periodical refreshment, very dry. He was of opinion that after the information I had obtained, if I gave him at least the price of a single drink and some tobacco, it would be characteristic of a gentleman.

Going round behind the furnace, I found a large quantity of freight: hogsheads, barrels, cases, bales, boxes, nail-rods, rolls of leather, ploughs, cotton, bale-rope, and firewood, all thrown together in the most confused manner, with hot steam-pipes and parts of the engine crossing through it. As I explored farther aft, I found negroes lying asleep in all postures upon the freight. A single group only, of five or six, appeared to be awake, and as I drew near they commenced to sing a Methodist hymn, not loudly, as negroes generally do, but, as it seemed to me, with a good deal of tenderness and feeling; a few white people--men, women, and children--were lying here and there among the negroes. Altogether, I learned we had two hundred of these deck passengers, black and white. A stove, by which they could fry bacon, was the only furniture provided for them by the boat. They carried with them their provisions for the voyage, and had their choice of the freight for beds.

As I came to the bows again, and was about to ascend to the cabin, two men came down, one of whom I recognized to have been my cot neighbor. "Where's a bucket?" said he. "By thunder, this fellow was so strong I could not sleep by him, so I stumped him to come down and wash his feet." "I am much obliged to you," said I; and I was, very much; the man had been lying in the cot beneath mine, to which I now returned, and soon fell asleep.

I awoke about midnight. There was an unusual jar in the boat, and an evident excitement among people whom I could hear talking on deck. I rolled out of my cot and stepped out on the gallery. The steamboat "Kimball" was running head-and-head with us, and so close that one might have jumped easily from our paddle-box on to her guards. A few other passengers had turned out besides myself, and most of the waiters were leaning on the rail of the gallery.

Occasionally a few words of banter passed between them and the waiters of the "Kimball;" below, the firemen were shouting as they crowded the furnaces, and some one could be heard cheering them: "Shove her up, boys! Shove her up! Give her hell!" "She's got to hold a conversation with us before she gets by, anyhow," said one of the negroes. "Ye har that ar' whistlin'?" said a white man; "tell ye thar ain't any too much water in her bilers when ye har that." I laughed silently, but was not without a slight expectant sensation, which Burke would perhaps have called sublime. At length the "Kimball" drew slowly ahead, crossed our bow, and the contest was given up. "De ole lady too heavy," said a waiter; "if I could pitch a few ton of dat ar freight off her bow, I bet de 'Kimball' would be askin' her to show de way mighty quick."

[Our traveller missed the experience which in former days made
travel now and then very lively upon the Mississippi,--a blow
up of one or other of the racing boats. A bell was rung to
rouse the cot-sleepers at half-past four, and the rest of the
day was taken up in preparations for and eating the three
meals.]

Every part of the boat, except the black hurricane-deck, was crowded; and so large a number of equally uncomfortable and disagreeable men I think I never saw elsewhere together. We made very slow progress, landing, it seems to me, after we entered Red River, at every "bend," "bottom," "bayou," "point," and "plantation" that came in sight; often for no other object than to roll out a barrel of flour or a keg of nails; sometimes merely to furnish newspapers to a wealthy planter, who had much cotton to send to market, and whom it was therefore desirable to please.

I was sitting one day on the forward gallery, watching a pair of ducks, that were alternately floating on the river and flying farther ahead as the steamer approached them. A man standing near me drew a long-barrelled and very finely-finished pistol from his coat-pocket, and, resting it against a stanchion, took aim at them. They were, I judged, fully the boat's own length--not less than two hundred feet--from us, and were just raising their wings to fly when he fired. One of them only rose; the other flapped round and round, and when within ten yards of the boat dived. The bullet had broken its wing. So remarkable a shot excited, of course, not a little admiration and conversation. Half a dozen other men standing near me at once drew pistols or revolvers from under their clothing, and several were firing at floating chips or objects on the shore. I saw no more remarkable shooting, however; and that the duck should have been hit at such a distance was generally considered a piece of luck. A man who had been in the "Rangers" said that all his company could put a ball into a tree, the size of a man's body, at sixty paces, at every shot, with Colt's army revolver, not taking steady aim, but firing at the jerk of the arm.

This pistol episode was almost the only entertainment in which the passengers engaged themselves, except eating, drinking, smoking, conversation, and card-playing. Gambling was constantly going on, day and night. I don't think there was an interruption to it of fifteen minutes in three days. The conversation was almost exclusively confined to the topics of steamboats, liquors, cards, black-land, red-land, bottom-land, timber-land, warrants, and locations, sugar, cotton, corn, and negroes.

After the first night I preferred to sleep on the trunks in the social hall [the lobby which contained the passengers' baggage] rather than among the cots in the crowded cabin, and several others did the same. There were, in fact, not cots enough for all the passengers excluded from the state-rooms. I found that some, and I presume most, of the passengers, by making the clerk believe that they would otherwise take the "Swamp Fox," had obtained their passage at considerably less price than I had paid.

[The above are the principal events of this description of
steamboat life before the war. Our passenger's journey ended at
Natchitoches, on the Red River, whence he started on a vagrant
trip through Texas, in which we need not follow him.]

WINTER ON THE PRAIRIES.

G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH.

[Of the earlier records of English travel in America one of the
most interesting and informing works is Featherstonhaugh's "A
Canoe Voyage up the Minnay Sotor," a journey made by the author
in 1835, and yielding much useful information on what is now
the ancient history of the great West. The selection given is
devoted to some of his prairie experiences during his journey
through the Sioux country from Lac qui Parle to Lake Travers.]

Renville had procured me a _charette_, or cart, to carry the tent, baggage, and provisions. I was to ride an old gray mare, with a foal running alongside; one of the Canadians was to drive the _charette_, and Miler and the rest were to walk. The morning was exceeding cold, and our road was along the prairie parallel with the lake. All the country in every direction, having been burnt over, was perfectly black, and a disagreeable sooty odor filled the atmosphere. At the end of five hours of a very tedious march we reached a stream called _Wahboptah_, which may be translated _Ground-nut_ river, the savages being in the habit of digging up the _Psoralea esculenta_, a nutritive bulbous root which grows here. The stream was about thirty feet wide, and had some trees growing on its banks. Having built up a good fire, the men proceeded to cook their dinner, while I strolled up the stream and collected some very fine unios, although I found it bitterly cold wading in the shallow water to procure them.

Having fed our horses on the grass near the stream which had not been burnt over, we started again for _Les Grosses Isles_, which we were instructed were distant about seven leagues, at the foot of Big Stone Lake. During the first two leagues the strong sooty smell of the country gave me a severe headache, and the weather became so cold that I was very uncomfortable; the fire, however, had not extended beyond this distance, for in about an hour and a half from our departure we came to the grass again, and I fortunately got rid of my headache. Our cavalry was exceedingly pleased by the change, the horses repeatedly winnowing to each other, as if to express their satisfaction. I here perceived a live gopher, or geomys, feebly running in the grass, and, dismounting, caught it. It apparently had strayed from its burrow, and had suffered from the weather. After examining it I let it go again, as it was impossible to take care of it, and I did not like to consign it to the men, as I knew they would kill and eat it, for they spared nothing.

As the evening advanced it became excessively cold, and a sharp wind, accompanied with frozen sleet, set in from the northeast: this soon became so thick that I could scarcely look up, much more see anything in the direction in which I was proceeding. Securing my person and ears as well as I could with my blanket coat, I left it to the mare--who Renville told me had been more than once to Lake Travers--to take her own course. At length the sleet became so dense that I lost sight of everybody except the little foal, which, generally lagging behind in the wake of its dam, occasionally trotted up to her when in her great anxiety she called for it. I never saw greater marks of maternal feeling in an animal than in this poor creature to her young one.

As we advanced my situation became exceedingly painful: the frozen sleet came in streams upon my face and eyes when I looked up; my feet and hands were so cold that I had scarcely any power over them; my whole exterior, as well as the head and neck of the mare, was covered with a glazing of ice; night was advancing, and we were without a guide, upon a dreary and shelterless moor of very great extent, and far beyond our present day's journey, with no prospect of an abatement of the storm. In the course of a somewhat adventurous life I have occasionally had to meet with serious privations and to look danger rather steadily in the face, but I had never been where there was so slight a chance of any favorable change. I had not even the comfort before me that every bleak moor in England offers under similar circumstances to the imagination,--some kind of shelter to receive us at last, if we were not overpowered by the inclemency of the weather. It became absolutely necessary to consider what it was best to do, if overtaken before dark by a deep snow.