Life on the Mississippi

Remarkable.--Instead of Widening towards its Mouth, it grows Narrower.--It Empties four hundred and six million Tons of Mud.--It was First Seen in 1542.--It is Older than some Page...

also.--Some Indian Paintings are Seen on the Rocks.--“The Father of Waters “does not Flow into the Pacific.--More History and Indians. --Some Curious Performances--not Early Englis...

Rafts.--We start on a Voyage.--I seek Information.--Some Music.--The Trouble begins.--Tall Talk.--The Child of Calamity.--Ground and lofty Tumbling.--The Wash-up.--Business and Sta...

and Wages.--Putting on Airs.--The Captains Weaken.--The Association Laughs.--The Secret Sign.--An Admirable System.--Rough on Outsiders. --A Tight Monopoly.--No Loophole.--The Rail...

Wild Night.--Swearing and Guessing.--Stephen in Debt.--He Confuses his Creditors.--He makes a New Deal.--Will Pay them Alphabetically....

Crash.--They Stand to their Posts.--In the Blazing Sun.--A Grewsome Spectacle.--His Hour has Struck....

to Appear.--The River Man is Missing.--The Young Man is Discouraged.-- Specimen Water.--A Fine Quality of Smoke.--A Supreme Mistake.--We Inspect the Town.--Desolation Way-traffic.-...

Whitewash.--Thirty Years on the River.-Mississippi Uniforms.--Accidents and Casualties.--Two hundred Wrecks.--A Loss to Literature.--Sunday- Schools and Brick Masons....

Plain Story.--Wars and Feuds.--Darnell versus Watson.--A Gang and a Woodpile.--Western Grammar.--River Changes.--New Madrid.--Floods and Falls....

Trollope's Emotions.--Hon. Charles Augustus Murray's Sentiment.--Captain Marryat's Sensations.--Alexander Mackay's Feelings.--Mr. Parkman Reports...

again.--Lights and Snag Boats.--Infinite Changes.--A Lawless River.--Changes and Jetties.--Uncle Mumford Testifies.--Pegging the River.--What the Government does.--The Commission.-...

Witnesses.--Stewart turns Traitor.--I Start a Rebellion.--I get a New Suit of Clothes.--We Cover our Tracks.--Pluck and Capacity.--A Good Samaritan City.--The Old and the New....

Went By a-Sparklin'.--Amenities of Life.--A World of Misinformation.-- Eloquence of Silence.--Striking a Snag.--Photographically Exact.--Plank Side-walks....

Flexible English.--A Dying Man's Confession.--I am Bound and Gagged. --I get Myself Free.--I Begin my Search.--The Man with one Thumb. --Red Paint and White Paper.--He Dropped on h...

no License.--The Calhoun Land Company.--A Cotton-planter's Estimate.--Halifax and Watermelons.--Jewelled-up Bar-keepers....

--A Continual Sunday.--A ton of Iron and no Glass.--The Ardent is Saved.--Mule Meat--A National Cemetery.--A Dog and a Shell.--Railroads and Wealth.--Wharfage Economy.--Vicksburg v...

makes a Proposition.--Loading Beeves at Acapulco.--He was n't Raised to it.--He is Roped In.--His Dull Eyes Lit Up.--Four Aces, you Ass!--He does n't Care for the Gores....

their Furniture.--Albums and Music.--Pantelettes and Conch-shells.--Sugar-candy Rabbits and Photographs.--Horse-hair Sofas and Snuffers.--Rag Carpets and Bridal Chambers....

Manufacture.--More Statistics.--Some Drummers.--Oleomargarine versus Butter.--Olive Oil versus Cotton Seed.--The Answer was not Caught. --A Terrific Episode.--A Sulphurous Canopy.-...

O'Flaherty goes One Better.--Epidemics and Embamming.--Six hundred for a Good Case.--Joyful High Spirits....

Ancient Quarter.--Cabbages and Bouquets.--Cows and Children.--The Shell Road. The West End.--A Good Square Meal.--The Pompano.--The Broom- Brigade.--Historical Painting.--Southern ...

--Mr. Cable and Jean au Poquelin.--Involuntary Trespass.--The Gilded Age.--An Impossible Combination.--The Owner Materializes and Protests....

Sugar.--A Frankenstein Laugh.--Spiritual Postage.--A Place where there are no Butchers or Plumbers.--Idiotic Spasms....

on Construction.--Sock and Buskin.--The Man who never played Hamlet.--I got Thirsty.--Sunday Statistics....

Thief.--His Story in the Pulpit.--Something Symmetrical.--A Literary Artist.--A Model Epistle.--Pumps again Working.--The “Nub” of the Note....

Dark and Dreadful Secret.--A Large Family.--A Golden-haired Darling. --The Mysterious Cross.--My Idol is Broken.--A Bad Season of Chills and Fever.--An Interesting Cave....

--The Scare-crow Dean.--Spouting Smoke and Flame.--An Atmosphere that tastes good.--The Sunset Land....

Scenery.--The Home of the Plow.--Black Hawk.--Fluctuating Securities. --A Contrast.--Electric Lights....

Vaccination.--A Long Ride.--Bones of Poverty.--The Pioneer of Civilization.--Jug of Empire.--Siamese Twins.--The Sugar-bush.--He Wins his Bride.--The Mystery about the Blanket.--A ...

The River and Its History THE Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. Considering the Missouri its m...

The River and Its Explorers LA SALLE himself sued for certain high privileges, and they were graciously accorded him by Louis XIV of inflated memory. Chief among them was the priv...

Frescoes from the Past APPARENTLY the river was ready for business, now. But no, the distribution of a population along its banks was as calm and deliberate and time-devouring a p...

The Boys' Ambition WHEN I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village {footnote [1. Hannibal, Missouri]} on the west bank of the Mississippi R...

I Want to be a Cub-pilot MONTHS afterward the hope within me struggled to a reluctant death, and I found myself without an ambition. But I was ashamed to go home. I was in Cincinn...

A Cub-pilot's Experience WHAT with lying on the rocks four days at Louisville, and some other delays, the poor old 'Paul Jones' fooled away about two weeks in making the voyage fr...

A Daring Deed WHEN I returned to the pilot-house St. Louis was gone and I was lost. Here was a piece of river which was all down in my book, but I could make neither head nor tail...

Perplexing Lessons At the end of what seemed a tedious while, I had managed to pack my head full of islands, towns, bars, 'points,' and bends; and a curiously inanimate mass of lu...

Continued Perplexities THERE was no use in arguing with a person like this. I promptly put such a strain on my memory that by and by even the shoal water and the countless crossin...

Completing My Education WHOSOEVER has done me the courtesy to read my chapters which have preceded this may possibly wonder that I deal so minutely with piloting as a science. It ...

The River Rises 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 a particularly cr...

Sounding WHEN the river is very low, and one's steamboat is 'drawing all the water' there is in the channel,--or a few inches more, as was often the case in the old times,--one mu...

A Pilot's Needs BUT I am wandering from what I was intending to do, that is, make plainer than perhaps appears in the previous chapters, some of the peculiar requirements of the s...

Rank and Dignity of Piloting IN my preceding chapters I have tried, by going into the minutiae of the science of piloting, to carry the reader step by step to a comprehension of w...

The Pilots' Monopoly ONE day, on board the 'Aleck Scott,' my chief, Mr. Bixby, was crawling carefully through a close place at Cat Island, both leads going, and everybody holding ...

Racing Days IT was always the custom for the boats to leave New Orleans between four and five o'clock in the afternoon. From three o'clock onward they would be burning rosin and p...

Cut-offs and Stephen THESE dry details are of importance in one particular. They give me an opportunity of introducing one of the Mississippi's oddest peculiarities,--that of shor...

I Take a Few Extra Lessons DURING the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship, I served under many pilots, and had experience of many kinds of steamboatmen and many varie...

Brown and I Exchange Compliments Two trips later, I got into serious trouble. Brown was steering; I was 'pulling down.' My younger brother appeared on the hurricane deck, and shou...

A Catastrophe WE lay three days in New Orleans, but the captain did not succeed in finding another pilot; so he proposed that I should stand a daylight watch, and leave the night ...

A Section in My Biography IN due course I got my license. I was a pilot now, full fledged. I dropped into casual employments; no misfortunes resulting, intermittent work gave plac...

I Return to My Muttons AFTER twenty-one years' absence, I felt a very strong desire to see the river again, and the steamboats, and such of the boys as might be left; so I resolve...

Traveling Incognito MY idea was, to tarry a while in every town between St. Louis and New Orleans. To do this, it would be necessary to go from place to place by the short packet ...

My Incognito is Exploded AFTER a close study of the face of the pilot on watch, I was satisfied that I had never seen him before; so I went up there. The pilot inspected me; I re-...

From Cairo to Hickman THE scenery, from St. Louis to Cairo--two hundred miles--is varied and beautiful. The hills were clothed in the fresh foliage of spring now, and were a graci...

Under Fire TALK began to run upon the war now, for we were getting down into the upper edge of the former battle-stretch by this time. Columbus was just behind us, so there was a ...

Some Imported Articles WE met two steamboats at New Madrid. Two steamboats in sight at once! an infrequent spectacle now in the lonesome Mississippi. The loneliness of this solemn...

Uncle Mumford Unloads ALL day we swung along down the river, and had the stream almost wholly to ourselves. Formerly, at such a stage of the water, we should have passed acres of ...

A Few Specimen Bricks WE passed through the Plum Point region, turned Craighead's Point, and glided unchallenged by what was once the formidable Fort Pillow, memorable because of ...

Sketches by the Way IT was a big river, below Memphis; banks brimming full, everywhere, and very frequently more than full, the waters pouring out over the land, flooding the wood...

A Thumb-print and What Came of It WE were approaching Napoleon, Arkansas. So I began to think about my errand there. Time, noonday; and bright and sunny. This was bad--not best, a...

The Disposal of a Bonanza 'SUCH was Ritter's narrative,' said I to my two friends. There was a profound and impressive silence, which lasted a considerable time; then both men bro...

Refreshments and Ethics IN regard to Island 74, which is situated not far from the former Napoleon, a freak of the river here has sorely perplexed the laws of men and made them a ...

Tough Yarns STACK island. I remembered Stack Island; also Lake Providence, Louisiana--which is the first distinctly Southern-looking town you come to, downward-bound; lies level a...

Vicksburg During the Trouble WE used to plow past the lofty hill-city, Vicksburg, down-stream; but we cannot do that now. A cut-off has made a country town of it, like Osceola, St...

The Professor's Yarn IT was in the early days. I was not a college professor then. I was a humble-minded young land-surveyor, with the world before me--to survey, in case anybody ...

The End of the 'Gold Dust' FOR, three months later, August 8, while I was writing one of these foregoing chapters, the New York papers brought this telegram-- A TERRIBLE DISASTER...

The House Beautiful WE took passage in a Cincinnati boat for New Orleans; or on a Cincinnati boat--either is correct; the former is the eastern form of putting it, the latter the ...

Manufactures and Miscreants WHERE the river, in the Vicksburg region, used to be corkscrewed, it is now comparatively straight--made so by cut-off; a former distance of seventy mi...

Castles and Culture BATON ROUGE was clothed in flowers, like a bride--no, much more so; like a greenhouse. For we were in the absolute South now--no modifications, no compromises,...

The Metropolis of the South THE approaches to New Orleans were familiar; general aspects were unchanged. When one goes flying through London along a railway propped in the air on ...

Hygiene and Sentiment THEY bury their dead in vaults, above the ground. These vaults have a resemblance to houses--sometimes to temples; are built of marble, generally; are archit...

The Art of Inhumation ABOUT the same time, I encountered a man in the street, whom I had not seen for six or seven years; and something like this talk followed. I said-- 'But you...

City Sights THE old French part of New Orleans--anciently the Spanish part--bears no resemblance to the American end of the city: the American end which lies beyond the intervenin...

Southern Sports IN the North one hears the war mentioned, in social conversation, once a month; sometimes as often as once a week; but as a distinct subject for talk, it has long ...

Enchantments and Enchanters THE largest annual event in New Orleans is a something which we arrived too late to sample--the Mardi-Gras festivities. I saw the procession of the Mys...

Uncle Remus and Mr. Cable MR. JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS ['Uncle Remus') was to arrive from Atlanta at seven o'clock Sunday morning; so we got up and received him. We were able to detec...

Sugar and Postage ONE day, on the street, I encountered the man whom, of all men, I most wished to see--Horace Bixby; formerly pilot under me--or rather, over me--now captain of t...

Episodes in Pilot Life IN the course of the tug-boat gossip, it came out that out of every five of my former friends who had quitted the river, four had chosen farming as an occup...

The 'Original Jacobs' WE had some talk about Captain Isaiah Sellers, now many years dead. He was a fine man, a high-minded man, and greatly respected both ashore and on the river....

Reminiscences WE left for St. Louis in the 'City of Baton Rouge,' on a delightfully hot day, but with the main purpose of my visit but lamely accomplished. I had hoped to hunt up ...

A Burning Brand _All _at once the thought came into my mind, 'I have not sought out Mr. Brown.' Upon that text I desire to depart from the direct line of my subject, and make a l...

My Boyhood's Home WE took passage in one of the fast boats of the St. Louis and St. Paul Packet Company, and started up the river. When I, as a boy, first saw the mouth of the Mi...

Past and Present Being left to myself, up there, I went on picking out old houses in the distant town, and calling back their former inmates out of the moldy past. Among them I pr...

A Vendetta and Other Things DURING my three days' stay in the town, I woke up every morning with the impression that I was a boy--for in my dreams the faces were all young again, ...

A Question of Law THE slaughter-house is gone from the mouth of Bear Creek and so is the small jail (or 'calaboose') which once stood in its neighborhood. A citizen asked, 'Do you...

An Archangel FROM St. Louis northward there are all the enlivening signs of the presence of active, energetic, intelligent, prosperous, practical nineteenth-century populations. T...

On the Upper River THE big towns drop in, thick and fast, now: and between stretch processions of thrifty farms, not desolate solitude. Hour by hour, the boat plows deeper and dee...

Legends and Scenery WE added several passengers to our list, at La Crosse; among others an old gentleman who had come to this north-western region with the early settlers, and was...

Speculations and Conclusions WE reached St. Paul, at the head of navigation of the Mississippi, and there our voyage of two thousand miles from New Orleans ended. It is about a te...