Life On The Mississippi E-Book

Mark Twain

• Herausgeber: Andura Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

An unforgettable classic from the legendary and beloved American author, Mark Twain.

Das E-Book wird angeboten von und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

Life On The Mississippi

by Mark Twain

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. The Mississippi is Well worth Reading about.--It is

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 Pages in European

History.--De Soto has the Pull.--Older than the Atlantic Coast.--Some

Half-breeds chip in.--La Salle Thinks he will Take a Hand.

CHAPTER II. La Salle again Appears, and so does a Cat-fish.--Buffaloes

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 English.--Natchez, or the Site of

it, is Approached.

CHAPTER III. A little History.--Early Commerce.--Coal Fleets and Timber

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 Statistics.--Mysterious

Band.--Thunder and Lightning.--The Captain speaks.--Allbright

weeps.--The Mystery settled.--Chaff.--I am Discovered.--Some Art-work

proposed.--I give an Account of Myself.--Released.

CHAPTER IV. The Boys' Ambition.--Village Scenes.--Steamboat Pictures.

--A Heavy Swell.--A Runaway.

CHAPTER V. A Traveller.--A Lively Talker.--A Wild-cat Victim

CHAPTER VI. Besieging the Pilot.--Taken along.--Spoiling a Nap.--Fishing

for a Plantation.--“Points” on the River.--A Gorgeous Pilot-house.

CHAPTER VII. River Inspectors.--Cottonwoods and Plum Point.--Hat-Island

Crossing.--Touch and Go.--It is a Go.--A Lightning Pilot

CHAPTER VIII. A Heavy-loaded Big Gun.--Sharp Sights in

Darkness.--Abandoned to his Fate.--Scraping the Banks.--Learn him or

Kill him.

CHAPTER IX. Shake the Reef.--Reason Dethroned.--The Face of the Water.

--A Bewitching Scene.-Romance and Beauty.

CHAPTER X. Putting on Airs.--Taken down a bit.--Learn it as it is.--The

River Rising.

CHAPTER XI. In thg Tract Business.--Effects of the Rise.--Plantations

gone.--A Measureless Sea.--A Somnambulist Pilot.--Supernatural

Piloting.--Nobody there.--All Saved.

CHAPTER XII. Low Water.--Yawl sounding.--Buoys and Lanterns.--Cubs and

Soundings.--The Boat Sunk.--Seeking the Wrecked.

CHAPTER XIII. A Pilot's Memory.--Wages soaring.--A Universal

Grasp.--Skill and Nerve.--Testing a “Cub.”--“Back her for Life.”--A Good

Lesson.

CHAPTER XIV. Pilots and Captains.--High-priced Pilots.--Pilots in

Demand.--A Whistler.--A cheap Trade.--Two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar

Speed.

CHAPTER XV. New Pilots undermining the Pilots' Association.--Crutches

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 Railroads and the War.

CHAPTER XVI. All Aboard.--A Glorious Start.--Loaded to Win.--Bands and

Bugles.--Boats and Boats.--Racers and Racing.

CHAPTER XVII. Cut-offs.--Ditching and Shooting.--Mississippi Changes.--A

Wild Night.--Swearing and Guessing.--Stephen in Debt.--He Confuses his

Creditors.--He makes a New Deal.--Will Pay them Alphabetically.

CHAPTER XVIII. Sharp Schooling.--Shadows.--I am Inspected.--Where did

you get them Shoes?--Pull her Down.--I want to kill Brown.--I try to run

her.--I am Complimented.

CHAPTER XIX. A Question of Veracity.--A Little Unpleasantness.--I have

an Audience with the Captain.--Mr. Brown Retires.

CHAPTER XX. I become a Passenger.--We hear the News.--A Thunderous

Crash.--They Stand to their Posts.--In the Blazing Sun.--A Grewsome

Spectacle.--His Hour has Struck.

CHAPTER XXI. I get my License.--The War Begins.--I become a

Jack-of-all-trades.

CHAPTER XXII. I try the Alias Business.--Region of Goatees--Boots begin

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.--A Wood-yard.

CHAPTER XXIII. Old French Settlements.--We start for Memphis.--Young

Ladies and Russia-leather Bags.

CHAPTER XXIV. I receive some Information.--Alligator Boats.--Alligator

Talk.--She was a Rattler to go.--I am Found Out.

CHAPTER XXV. The Devil's Oven and Table.--A Bombshell falls.--No

Whitewash.--Thirty Years on the River.-Mississippi Uniforms.--Accidents

and Casualties.--Two hundred Wrecks.--A Loss to Literature.--Sunday-

Schools and Brick Masons.

CHAPTER XXVI. War Talk.--I Tilt over Backwards.--Fifteen Shot-holes.--A

Plain Story.--Wars and Feuds.--Darnell versus Watson.--A Gang and a

Woodpile.--Western Grammar.--River Changes.--New Madrid.--Floods and

Falls.

CHAPTER XXVII. Tourists and their Note-books.--Captain Hall.--Mrs.

Trollope's Emotions.--Hon. Charles Augustus Murray's Sentiment.--Captain

Marryat's Sensations.--Alexander Mackay's Feelings.--Mr. Parkman

Reports

CHAPTER XXVIII. Swinging down the River.--Named for Me.--Plum Point

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.--Men and

Theories.--“Had them Bad.”--Jews and Prices.

CHAPTER XXIX. Murel's Gang.--A Consummate Villain.--Getting Rid of

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.

CHAPTER XXX. A Melancholy Picture.--On the Move.--River Gossip.--She

Went By a-Sparklin'.--Amenities of Life.--A World of Misinformation.--

Eloquence of Silence.--Striking a Snag.--Photographically Exact.--Plank

Side-walks.

CHAPTER XXXI. Mutinous Language.--The Dead-house.--Cast-iron German and

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 his Knees.--Fright and

Gratitude.--I Fled through the Woods.--A Grisly Spectacle.--Shout, Man,

Shout.--A look of Surprise and Triumph.--The Muffled Gurgle of a Mocking

Laugh.--How strangely Things happen.--The Hidden Money.

CHAPTER XXXII. Ritter's Narrative.--A Question of

Money.--Napoleon.--Somebody is Serious.--Where the Prettiest Girl used

to Live.

CHAPTER XXXIII. A Question of Division.--A Place where there was

no License.--The Calhoun Land Company.--A Cotton-planter's

Estimate.--Halifax and Watermelons.--Jewelled-up Bar-keepers.

CHAPTER XXXIV. An Austere Man.--A Mosquito Policy.--Facts dressed in

Tights.--A  swelled Left Ear.

CHAPTER XXXV. Signs and Scars.--Cannon-thunder Rages.--Cave-dwellers.

--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 versus The “Gold Dust.”--A

Narrative in Anticipation.

CHAPTER XXXVI. The Professor Spins a Yarn.--An Enthusiast in Cattle.--He

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.

CHAPTER XXXVII. A Terrible Disaster.--The “Gold Dust” explodes her

Boilers.--The End of a Good Man.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. Mr. Dickens has a Word.--Best Dwellings and

their Furniture.--Albums and Music.--Pantelettes and

Conch-shells.--Sugar-candy Rabbits and Photographs.--Horse-hair Sofas

and Snuffers.--Rag Carpets and Bridal Chambers.

CHAPTER XXXIX. Rowdies and Beauty.--Ice as Jewelry.--Ice

Manufacture.--More Statistics.--Some Drummers.--Oleomargarine versus

Butter.--Olive Oil versus Cotton Seed.--The Answer was not Caught.

--A Terrific Episode.--A Sulphurous Canopy.--The Demons of War.--The

Terrible Gauntlet.

CHAPTER XL. In Flowers, like a Bride.--A White-washed Castle.--A

Southern Prospectus.--Pretty Pictures.--An Alligator's Meal.

CHAPTER XLI. The Approaches to New Orleans.--A Stirring

Street.--Sanitary Improvements.--Journalistic Achievements.--Cisterns

and Wells.

CHAPTER XLII. Beautiful Grave-yards.--Chameleons and

Panaceas.--Inhumation and Infection.--Mortality and Epidemics.--The Cost

of Funerals.

CHAPTER XLIII. I meet an Acquaintance.--Coffins and Swell Houses.--Mrs.

O'Flaherty goes One Better.--Epidemics and Embamming.--Six hundred for a

Good Case.--Joyful High Spirits.

CHAPTER XLIV. French and Spanish Parts of the City.--Mr. Cable and the

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 Speech.--Lagniappe.

CHAPTER XLV. “Waw” Talk.--Cock-Fighting.--Too Much to Bear.--Fine

Writing.--Mule Racing.

CHAPTER XLVI. Mardi-Gras.--The Mystic Crewe.--Rex and Relics.--Sir

Walter Scott.--A World Set Back.--Titles and Decorations.--A Change.

CHAPTER XLVII. Uncle Remus.--The Children Disappointed.--We Read Aloud.

--Mr. Cable and Jean au Poquelin.--Involuntary Trespass.--The Gilded

Age.--An Impossible Combination.--The Owner Materializes and Protests.

CHAPTER XLVIII. Tight Curls and Springy Steps.--Steam-plows.--“No. I.”

 Sugar.--A Frankenstein Laugh.--Spiritual Postage.--A Place where there

are no Butchers or Plumbers.--Idiotic Spasms.

CHAPTER XLIX. Pilot-Farmers.--Working on Shares.--Consequences.--Men who

Stick to their Posts.--He saw what he would do.--A Day after the Fair.

CHAPTER L. A Patriarch.--Leaves from a Diary.--A Tongue-stopper.--The

Ancient Mariner.--Pilloried in Print.--Petrified Truth.

CHAPTER LI. A Fresh “Cub” at the Wheel.--A Valley Storm.--Some Remarks

on Construction.--Sock and Buskin.--The Man who never played Hamlet.--I

got Thirsty.--Sunday Statistics.

CHAPTER LII. I Collar an Idea.--A Graduate of Harvard.--A Penitent

Thief.--His Story in the Pulpit.--Something Symmetrical.--A Literary

Artist.--A Model Epistle.--Pumps again Working.--The “Nub” of the Note.

CHAPTER LIII. A Masterly Retreat.--A Town at Rest.--Boyhood's

Pranks.--Friends of my Youth.--The Refuge for Imbeciles.--I am Presented

with my Measure.

CHAPTER LIV. A Special Judgment.--Celestial Interest.--A Night of

Agony.--Another Bad Attack.--I become Convalescent.--I address a

Sunday-school.--A Model Boy.

CHAPTER LV. A second Generation.--A hundred thousand Tons of Saddles.--A

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.

CHAPTER LVI. Perverted History--A Guilty Conscience.--A Supposititious

Case.--A Habit to be Cultivated.--I Drop my Burden.--Difference in

Time.

CHAPTER LVII. A Model Town.--A Town that Comes up to Blow in the Summer.

--The Scare-crow Dean.--Spouting Smoke and Flame.--An Atmosphere that

tastes good.--The Sunset Land.

CHAPTER LVIII. An Independent Race.--Twenty-four-hour Towns.--Enchanting

Scenery.--The Home of the Plow.--Black Hawk.--Fluctuating Securities.

--A Contrast.--Electric Lights.

CHAPTER LIX. Indian Traditions and Rattlesnakes.--A Three-ton

Word.--Chimney Rock.--The Panorama Man.--A Good Jump.--The Undying Head.

--Peboan and Seegwun.

CHAPTER LX. The Head of Navigation.--From Roses to Snow.--Climatic

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 City that is always a

Novelty.--Home again.

APPENDIX.          A          B          C          D

THE 'BODY OF THE NATION'

BUT the basin of the Mississippi is the _Body of The Nation_. All the

other parts are but members, important in themselves, yet more important

in their relations to this. Exclusive of the Lake basin and of 300,000

square miles in Texas and New Mexico, which in many aspects form a part

of it, this basin contains about 1,250,000 square miles. In extent it is

the second great valley of the world, being exceeded only by that of the

Amazon. The valley of the frozen Obi approaches it in extent; that of

La Plata comes next in space, and probably in habitable capacity, having

about eight-ninths of its area; then comes that of the Yenisei, with

about seven-ninths; the Lena, Amoor, Hoang-ho, Yang-tse-kiang, and

Nile, five-ninths; the Ganges, less than one-half; the Indus, less

than one-third; the Euphrates, one-fifth; the Rhine, one-fifteenth. It

exceeds in extent the whole of Europe, exclusive of Russia, Norway,

and Sweden. _It would contain austria four times, germany or spain

five times, france six times, the british islands or italy ten times._

Conceptions formed from the river-basins of Western Europe are rudely

shocked when we consider the extent of the valley of the Mississippi;

nor are those formed from the sterile basins of the great rivers of

Siberia, the lofty plateaus of Central Asia, or the mighty sweep of

the swampy Amazon more adequate. Latitude, elevation, and rainfall

all combine to render every part of the Mississippi Valley capable of

supporting a dense population. _As a dwelling-place for civilized man it

is by far the first upon our globe_.

EDITOR'S TABLE, HARPER'S MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 1863

CHAPTER 1

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 main branch, it is the longest river in the world--four

thousand three hundred miles. It seems safe to say that it is also the

crookedest river in the world, since in one part of its journey it uses

up one thousand three hundred miles to cover the same ground that the

crow would fly over in six hundred and seventy-five. It discharges three

times as much water as the St. Lawrence, twenty-five times as much

as the Rhine, and three hundred and thirty-eight times as much as the

Thames. No other river has so vast a drainage-basin: it draws its water

supply from twenty-eight States and Territories; from Delaware, on the

Atlantic seaboard, and from all the country between that and Idaho on

the Pacific slope--a spread of forty-five degrees of longitude. The

Mississippi receives and carries to the Gulf water from fifty-four

subordinate rivers that are navigable by steamboats, and from some

hundreds that are navigable by flats and keels. The area of its

drainage-basin is as great as the combined areas of England, Wales,

Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Italy,

and Turkey; and almost all this wide region is fertile; the Mississippi

valley, proper, is exceptionally so.

It is a remarkable river in this: that instead of widening toward its

mouth, it grows narrower; grows narrower and deeper. From the junction

of the Ohio to a point half way down to the sea, the width averages a

mile in high water: thence to the sea the width steadily diminishes,

until, at the 'Passes,' above the mouth, it is but little over half

a mile. At the junction of the Ohio the Mississippi's depth is

eighty-seven feet; the depth increases gradually, reaching one hundred

and twenty-nine just above the mouth.

The difference in rise and fall is also remarkable--not in the upper,

but in the lower river. The rise is tolerably uniform down to Natchez

(three hundred and sixty miles above the mouth)--about fifty feet.

But at Bayou La Fourche the river rises only twenty-four feet; at New

Orleans only fifteen, and just above the mouth only two and one half.

An article in the New Orleans 'Times-Democrat,' based upon reports of

able engineers, states that the river annually empties four hundred and

six million tons of mud into the Gulf of Mexico--which brings to mind

Captain Marryat's rude name for the Mississippi--'the Great Sewer.' This

mud, solidified, would make a mass a mile square and two hundred and

forty-one feet high.

The mud deposit gradually extends the land--but only gradually; it has

extended it not quite a third of a mile in the two hundred years which

have elapsed since the river took its place in history. The belief of

the scientific people is, that the mouth used to be at Baton Rouge,

where the hills cease, and that the two hundred miles of land between

there and the Gulf was built by the river. This gives us the age of that

piece of country, without any trouble at all--one hundred and twenty

thousand years. Yet it is much the youthfullest batch of country that

lies around there anywhere.

The Mississippi is remarkable in still another way--its disposition to

make prodigious jumps by cutting through narrow necks of land, and thus

straightening and shortening itself. More than once it has shortened

itself thirty miles at a single jump! These cut-offs have had curious

effects: they have thrown several river towns out into the rural

districts, and built up sand bars and forests in front of them. The town

of Delta used to be three miles below Vicksburg: a recent cutoff has

radically changed the position, and Delta is now _two miles above_

Vicksburg.

Both of these river towns have been retired to the country by that

cut-off. A cut-off plays havoc with boundary lines and jurisdictions:

for instance, a man is living in the State of Mississippi to-day, a

cut-off occurs to-night, and to-morrow the man finds himself and his

land over on the other side of the river, within the boundaries and

subject to the laws of the State of Louisiana! Such a thing, happening

in the upper river in the old times, could have transferred a slave from

Missouri to Illinois and made a free man of him.

The Mississippi does not alter its locality by cut-offs alone: it

is always changing its habitat _bodily_--is always moving bodily

_sidewise_. At Hard Times, La., the river is two miles west of the

region it used to occupy. As a result, the original _site _of that

settlement is not now in Louisiana at all, but on the other side of

the river, in the State of Mississippi. _Nearly the whole of that one

thousand three hundred miles of old mississippi river which la salle

floated down in his canoes, two hundred years ago, is good solid dry

ground now_. The river lies to the right of it, in places, and to the

left of it in other places.

Although the Mississippi's mud builds land but slowly, down at the

mouth, where the Gulfs billows interfere with its work, it builds fast

enough in better protected regions higher up: for instance, Prophet's

Island contained one thousand five hundred acres of land thirty years

ago; since then the river has added seven hundred acres to it.

But enough of these examples of the mighty stream's eccentricities for

the present--I will give a few more of them further along in the book.

Let us drop the Mississippi's physical history, and say a word about its

historical history--so to speak. We can glance briefly at its slumbrous

first epoch in a couple of short chapters; at its second and wider-awake

epoch in a couple more; at its flushest and widest-awake epoch in a good

many succeeding chapters; and then talk about its comparatively tranquil

present epoch in what shall be left of the book.

The world and the books are so accustomed to use, and over-use, the word

'new' in connection with our country, that we early get and permanently

retain the impression that there is nothing old about it. We do of

course know that there are several comparatively old dates in American

history, but the mere figures convey to our minds no just idea, no

distinct realization, of the stretch of time which they represent.

To say that De Soto, the first white man who ever saw the Mississippi

River, saw it in 1542, is a remark which states a fact without

interpreting it: it is something like giving the dimensions of a sunset

by astronomical measurements, and cataloguing the colors by their

scientific names;--as a result, you get the bald fact of the sunset, but

you don't see the sunset. It would have been better to paint a picture

of it.

The date 1542, standing by itself, means little or nothing to us; but

when one groups a few neighboring historical dates and facts around it,

he adds perspective and color, and then realizes that this is one of the

American dates which is quite respectable for age.

For instance, when the Mississippi was first seen by a white man, less

than a quarter of a century had elapsed since Francis I.'s defeat at

Pavia; the death of Raphael; the death of Bayard, _Sans Peur Et Sans

Reproche_; the driving out of the Knights-Hospitallers from Rhodes by

the Turks; and the placarding of the Ninety-Five Propositions,--the act

which began the Reformation. When De Soto took his glimpse of the river,

Ignatius Loyola was an obscure name; the order of the Jesuits was not

yet a year old; Michael Angelo's paint was not yet dry on the Last

Judgment in the Sistine Chapel; Mary Queen of Scots was not yet born,

but would be before the year closed. Catherine de Medici was a child;

Elizabeth of England was not yet in her teens; Calvin, Benvenuto

Cellini, and the Emperor Charles V. were at the top of their fame, and

each was manufacturing history after his own peculiar fashion; Margaret

of Navarre was writing the 'Heptameron' and some religious books,--the

first survives, the others are forgotten, wit and indelicacy being

sometimes better literature preservers than holiness; lax court morals

and the absurd chivalry business were in full feather, and the joust and

the tournament were the frequent pastime of titled fine gentlemen who

could fight better than they could spell, while religion was the passion

of their ladies, and classifying their offspring into children of full

rank and children by brevet their pastime.

In fact, all around, religion was in a peculiarly blooming condition:

the Council of Trent was being called; the Spanish Inquisition was

roasting, and racking, and burning, with a free hand; elsewhere on the

continent the nations were being persuaded to holy living by the sword

and fire; in England, Henry VIII. had suppressed the monasteries,

burnt Fisher and another bishop or two, and was getting his English

reformation and his harem effectively started. When De Soto stood on the

banks of the Mississippi, it was still two years before Luther's death;

eleven years before the burning of Servetus; thirty years before the St.

Bartholomew slaughter; Rabelais was not yet published; 'Don Quixote' was

not yet written; Shakespeare was not yet born; a hundred long years must

still elapse before Englishmen would hear the name of Oliver Cromwell.

Unquestionably the discovery of the Mississippi is a datable fact which

considerably mellows and modifies the shiny newness of our country, and

gives her a most respectable outside-aspect of rustiness and antiquity.

De Soto merely glimpsed the river, then died and was buried in it by his

priests and soldiers. One would expect the priests and the soldiers

to multiply the river's dimensions by ten--the Spanish custom of the

day--and thus move other adventurers to go at once and explore it. On

the contrary, their narratives when they reached home, did not excite

that amount of curiosity. The Mississippi was left unvisited by whites

during a term of years which seems incredible in our energetic days. One

may 'sense' the interval to his mind, after a fashion, by dividing it

up in this way: After De Soto glimpsed the river, a fraction short of

a quarter of a century elapsed, and then Shakespeare was born; lived a

trifle more than half a century, then died; and when he had been in his

grave considerably more than half a century, the _second _white man saw

the Mississippi. In our day we don't allow a hundred and thirty years to

elapse between glimpses of a marvel. If somebody should discover a creek

in the county next to the one that the North Pole is in, Europe and

America would start fifteen costly expeditions thither: one to explore

the creek, and the other fourteen to hunt for each other.

For more than a hundred and fifty years there had been white settlements

on our Atlantic coasts. These people were in intimate communication

with the Indians: in the south the Spaniards were robbing, slaughtering,

enslaving and converting them; higher up, the English were trading beads

and blankets to them for a consideration, and throwing in civilization

and whiskey, 'for lagniappe;' and in Canada the French were schooling

them in a rudimentary way, missionarying among them, and drawing whole

populations of them at a time to Quebec, and later to Montreal, to buy

furs of them. Necessarily, then, these various clusters of whites must

have heard of the great river of the far west; and indeed, they did

hear of it vaguely,--so vaguely and indefinitely, that its course,

proportions, and locality were hardly even guessable. The mere

mysteriousness of the matter ought to have fired curiosity and compelled

exploration; but this did not occur. Apparently nobody happened to want

such a river, nobody needed it, nobody was curious about it; so, for

a century and a half the Mississippi remained out of the market and

undisturbed. When De Soto found it, he was not hunting for a river, and

had no present occasion for one; consequently he did not value it or

even take any particular notice of it.

But at last La Salle the Frenchman conceived the idea of seeking out

that river and exploring it. It always happens that when a man seizes

upon a neglected and important idea, people inflamed with the same

notion crop up all around. It happened so in this instance.

Naturally the question suggests itself, Why did these people want the

river now when nobody had wanted it in the five preceding generations?

Apparently it was because at this late day they thought they had

discovered a way to make it useful; for it had come to be believed

that the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of California, and therefore

afforded a short cut from Canada to China. Previously the supposition

had been that it emptied into the Atlantic, or Sea of Virginia.

CHAPTER 2

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 privilege to explore, far and wide, and build forts, and

stake out continents, and hand the same over to the king, and pay the

expenses himself; receiving, in return, some little advantages of one

sort or another; among them the monopoly of buffalo hides. He spent

several years and about all of his money, in making perilous and painful

trips between Montreal and a fort which he had built on the Illinois,

before he at last succeeded in getting his expedition in such a shape

that he could strike for the Mississippi.

And meantime other parties had had better fortune. In 1673 Joliet the

merchant, and Marquette the priest, crossed the country and reached the

banks of the Mississippi. They went by way of the Great Lakes; and from

Green Bay, in canoes, by way of Fox River and the Wisconsin. Marquette

had solemnly contracted, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, that

if the Virgin would permit him to discover the great river, he would

name it Conception, in her honor. He kept his word. In that day, all

explorers traveled with an outfit of priests. De Soto had twenty-four

with him. La Salle had several, also. The expeditions were often out of

meat, and scant of clothes, but they always had the furniture and other

requisites for the mass; they were always prepared, as one of the quaint

chroniclers of the time phrased it, to 'explain hell to the savages.'

On the 17th of June, 1673, the canoes of Joliet and Marquette and

their five subordinates reached the junction of the Wisconsin with the

Mississippi. Mr. Parkman says: 'Before them a wide and rapid current

coursed athwart their way, by the foot of lofty heights wrapped thick

in forests.' He continues: 'Turning southward, they paddled down the

stream, through a solitude unrelieved by the faintest trace of man.'

A big cat-fish collided with Marquette's canoe, and startled him; and

reasonably enough, for he had been warned by the Indians that he was

on a foolhardy journey, and even a fatal one, for the river contained

a demon 'whose roar could be heard at a great distance, and who would

engulf them in the abyss where he dwelt.' I have seen a Mississippi

cat-fish that was more than six feet long, and weighed two hundred and

fifty pounds; and if Marquette's fish was the fellow to that one, he had

a fair right to think the river's roaring demon was come.

'At length the buffalo began to appear, grazing in herds on the great

prairies which then bordered the river; and Marquette describes the

fierce and stupid look of the old bulls as they stared at the intruders

through the tangled mane which nearly blinded them.'

The voyagers moved cautiously: 'Landed at night and made a fire to cook

their evening meal; then extinguished it, embarked again, paddled some

way farther, and anchored in the stream, keeping a man on the watch till

morning.'

They did this day after day and night after night; and at the end of two

weeks they had not seen a human being. The river was an awful solitude,

then. And it is now, over most of its stretch.

But at the close of the fortnight they one day came upon the footprints

of men in the mud of the western bank--a Robinson Crusoe experience

which carries an electric shiver with it yet, when one stumbles on it in

print. They had been warned that the river Indians were as ferocious and

pitiless as the river demon, and destroyed all comers without waiting

for provocation; but no matter, Joliet and Marquette struck into the

country to hunt up the proprietors of the tracks. They found them, by

and by, and were hospitably received and well treated--if to be received

by an Indian chief who has taken off his last rag in order to appear

at his level best is to be received hospitably; and if to be treated

abundantly to fish, porridge, and other game, including dog, and have

these things forked into one's mouth by the ungloved fingers of Indians

is to be well treated. In the morning the chief and six hundred of his

tribesmen escorted the Frenchmen to the river and bade them a friendly

farewell.

On the rocks above the present city of Alton they found some rude and

fantastic Indian paintings, which they describe. A short distance below

'a torrent of yellow mud rushed furiously athwart the calm blue current

of the Mississippi, boiling and surging and sweeping in its course logs,

branches, and uprooted trees.' This was the mouth of the Missouri, 'that

savage river,' which 'descending from its mad career through a vast

unknown of barbarism, poured its turbid floods into the bosom of its

gentle sister.'

By and by they passed the mouth of the Ohio; they passed cane-brakes;

they fought mosquitoes; they floated along, day after day, through the

deep silence and loneliness of the river, drowsing in the scant shade

of makeshift awnings, and broiling with the heat; they encountered and

exchanged civilities with another party of Indians; and at last

they reached the mouth of the Arkansas (about a month out from their

starting-point), where a tribe of war-whooping savages swarmed out to

meet and murder them; but they appealed to the Virgin for help; so in

place of a fight there was a feast, and plenty of pleasant palaver and

fol-de-rol.

They had proved to their satisfaction, that the Mississippi did not

empty into the Gulf of California, or into the Atlantic. They believed

it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. They turned back, now, and carried

their great news to Canada.

But belief is not proof. It was reserved for La Salle to furnish the

proof. He was provokingly delayed, by one misfortune after another, but

at last got his expedition under way at the end of the year 1681. In the

dead of winter he and Henri de Tonty, son of Lorenzo Tonty, who invented

the tontine, his lieutenant, started down the Illinois, with a

following of eighteen Indians brought from New England, and twenty-three

Frenchmen. They moved in procession down the surface of the frozen

river, on foot, and dragging their canoes after them on sledges.

At Peoria Lake they struck open water, and paddled thence to the

Mississippi and turned their prows southward. They plowed through the

fields of floating ice, past the mouth of the Missouri; past the mouth

of the Ohio, by-and-by; 'and, gliding by the wastes of bordering swamp,

landed on the 24th of February near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs,' where

they halted and built Fort Prudhomme.

'Again,' says Mr. Parkman, 'they embarked; and with every stage of their

adventurous progress, the mystery of this vast new world was more and

more unveiled. More and more they entered the realms of spring. The

hazy sunlight, the warm and drowsy air, the tender foliage, the opening

flowers, betokened the reviving life of nature.'

Day by day they floated down the great bends, in the shadow of the dense

forests, and in time arrived at the mouth of the Arkansas. First, they

were greeted by the natives of this locality as Marquette had before

been greeted by them--with the booming of the war drum and the flourish

of arms. The Virgin composed the difficulty in Marquette's case; the

pipe of peace did the same office for La Salle. The white man and the

red man struck hands and entertained each other during three days. Then,

to the admiration of the savages, La Salle set up a cross with the

arms of France on it, and took possession of the whole country for the

king--the cool fashion of the time--while the priest piously consecrated

the robbery with a hymn. The priest explained the mysteries of the faith

'by signs,' for the saving of the savages; thus compensating them with

possible possessions in Heaven for the certain ones on earth which they

had just been robbed of. And also, by signs, La Salle drew from these

simple children of the forest acknowledgments of fealty to Louis the

Putrid, over the water. Nobody smiled at these colossal ironies.

These performances took place on the site of the future town of

Napoleon, Arkansas, and there the first confiscation-cross was raised

on the banks of the great river. Marquette's and Joliet's voyage

of discovery ended at the same spot--the site of the future town of

Napoleon. When De Soto took his fleeting glimpse of the river, away back

in the dim early days, he took it from that same spot--the site of the

future town of Napoleon, Arkansas. Therefore, three out of the four

memorable events connected with the discovery and exploration of the

mighty river, occurred, by accident, in one and the same place. It is a

most curious distinction, when one comes to look at it and think about

it. France stole that vast country on that spot, the future Napoleon;

and by and by Napoleon himself was to give the country back again!--make

restitution, not to the owners, but to their white American heirs.

The voyagers journeyed on, touching here and there; 'passed the sites,

since become historic, of Vicksburg and Grand Gulf,' and visited an

imposing Indian monarch in the Teche country, whose capital city was a

substantial one of sun-baked bricks mixed with straw--better houses than

many that exist there now. The chiefs house contained an audience room

forty feet square; and there he received Tonty in State, surrounded by

sixty old men clothed in white cloaks. There was a temple in the town,

with a mud wall about it ornamented with skulls of enemies sacrificed to

the sun.

The voyagers visited the Natchez Indians, near the site of the

present city of that name, where they found a 'religious and political

despotism, a privileged class descended from the sun, a temple and a

sacred fire.' It must have been like getting home again; it was home

with an advantage, in fact, for it lacked Louis XIV.

A few more days swept swiftly by, and La Salle stood in the shadow of

his confiscating cross, at the meeting of the waters from Delaware, and

from Itaska, and from the mountain ranges close upon the Pacific,

with the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, his task finished, his prodigy

achieved. Mr. Parkman, in closing his fascinating narrative, thus sums

up:

'On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous

accession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the

Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of

the Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks

of the Rocky Mountains--a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked

deserts and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by

a thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the scepter of the Sultan of

Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half

a mile.'

CHAPTER 3

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 process as the discovery and exploration had been.

Seventy years elapsed, after the exploration, before the river's borders

had a white population worth considering; and nearly fifty more before

the river had a commerce. Between La Salle's opening of the river and

the time when it may be said to have become the vehicle of anything like

a regular and active commerce, seven sovereigns had occupied the throne

of England, America had become an independent nation, Louis XIV. and

Louis XV. had rotted and died, the French monarchy had gone down in

the red tempest of the revolution, and Napoleon was a name that was

beginning to be talked about. Truly, there were snails in those days.

The river's earliest commerce was in great barges--keelboats,

broadhorns. They floated and sailed from the upper rivers to New

Orleans, changed cargoes there, and were tediously warped and poled back

by hand. A voyage down and back sometimes occupied nine months. In time

this commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and

hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with

sailor-like stoicism; heavy drinkers, coarse frolickers in moral sties

like the Natchez-under-the-hill of that day, heavy fighters, reckless

fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigal

of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric

finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy,

faithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.

By and by the steamboat intruded. Then for fifteen or twenty years,

these men continued to run their keelboats down-stream, and the steamers

did all of the upstream business, the keelboatmen selling their boats in

New Orleans, and returning home as deck passengers in the steamers.

But after a while the steamboats so increased in number and in speed

that they were able to absorb the entire commerce; and then keelboating

died a permanent death. The keelboatman became a deck hand, or a mate,

or a pilot on the steamer; and when steamer-berths were not open to him,

he took a berth on a Pittsburgh coal-flat, or on a pine-raft constructed

in the forests up toward the sources of the Mississippi.

In the heyday of the steamboating prosperity, the river from end to end

was flaked with coal-fleets and timber rafts, all managed by hand,

and employing hosts of the rough characters whom I have been trying to

describe. I remember the annual processions of mighty rafts that used

to glide by Hannibal when I was a boy,--an acre or so of white,

sweet-smelling boards in each raft, a crew of two dozen men or more,

three or four wigwams scattered about the raft's vast level space for

storm-quarters,--and I remember the rude ways and the tremendous talk

of their big crews, the ex-keelboatmen and their admiringly patterning

successors; for we used to swim out a quarter or third of a mile and get

on these rafts and have a ride.

By way of illustrating keelboat talk and manners, and that now-departed

and hardly-remembered raft-life, I will throw in, in this place, a

chapter from a book which I have been working at, by fits and starts,

during the past five or six years, and may possibly finish in the course

of five or six more. The book is a story which details some passages in

the life of an ignorant village boy, Huck Finn, son of the town drunkard

of my time out west, there. He has run away from his persecuting

father, and from a persecuting good widow who wishes to make a nice,

truth-telling, respectable boy of him; and with him a slave of the

widow's has also escaped. They have found a fragment of a lumber raft

(it is high water and dead summer time), and are floating down the river

by night, and hiding in the willows by day,--bound for Cairo,--whence

the negro will seek freedom in the heart of the free States. But in a

fog, they pass Cairo without knowing it. By and by they begin to suspect

the truth, and Huck Finn is persuaded to end the dismal suspense by

swimming down to a huge raft which they have seen in the distance ahead

of them, creeping aboard under cover of the darkness, and gathering the

needed information by eavesdropping:--

But you know a young person can't wait very well when he is impatient to

find a thing out. We talked it over, and by and by Jim said it was such

a black night, now, that it wouldn't be no risk to swim down to the big

raft and crawl aboard and listen--they would talk about Cairo, because

they would be calculating to go ashore there for a spree, maybe, or

anyway they would send boats ashore to buy whiskey or fresh meat or

something. Jim had a wonderful level head, for a nigger: he could most

always start a good plan when you wanted one.

I stood up and shook my rags off and jumped into the river, and struck

out for the raft's light. By and by, when I got down nearly to her,

I eased up and went slow and cautious. But everything was all

right--nobody at the sweeps. So I swum down along the raft till I was

most abreast the camp fire in the middle, then I crawled aboard and

inched along and got in amongst some bundles of shingles on the weather

side of the fire. There was thirteen men there--they was the watch on

deck of course. And a mighty rough-looking lot, too. They had a jug, and

tin cups, and they kept the jug moving. One man was singing--roaring,

you may say; and it wasn't a nice song--for a parlor anyway. He roared

through his nose, and strung out the last word of every line very long.

When he was done they all fetched a kind of Injun war-whoop, and then

another was sung. It begun:--

'There was a woman in our towdn, In our towdn did dwed'l (dwell,) She

loved her husband dear-i-lee, But another man twysteas wed'l.

Singing too, riloo, riloo, riloo, Ri-too, riloo, rilay--She loved her

husband dear-i-lee, But another man twyste as wed'l.

And so on--fourteen verses. It was kind of poor, and when he was going

to start on the next verse one of them said it was the tune the old cow

died on; and another one said, 'Oh, give us a rest.' And another one

told him to take a walk. They made fun of him till he got mad and jumped

up and begun to cuss the crowd, and said he could lame any thief in the

lot.

They was all about to make a break for him, but the biggest man there

jumped up and says--

'Set whar you are, gentlemen. Leave him to me; he's my meat.'

Then he jumped up in the air three times and cracked his heels together

every time. He flung off a buckskin coat that was all hung with fringes,

and says, 'You lay thar tell the chawin-up's done;' and flung his hat

down, which was all over ribbons, and says, 'You lay thar tell his

sufferin's is over.'

Then he jumped up in the air and cracked his heels together again and

shouted out--

'Whoo-oop! I'm the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted,

copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!--Look at me!

I'm the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a

hurricane, dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly

related to the small-pox on the mother's side! Look at me! I take

nineteen alligators and a bar'l of whiskey for breakfast when I'm in

robust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I'm

ailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the

thunder when I speak! Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according

to my strength! Blood's my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is

music to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen!--and lay low and hold

your breath, for I'm bout to turn myself loose!'

All the time he was getting this off, he was shaking his head and

looking fierce, and kind of swelling around in a little circle, tucking

up his wrist-bands, and now and then straightening up and beating his

breast with his fist, saying, 'Look at me, gentlemen!' When he got

through, he jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, and

let off a roaring 'Whoo-oop! I'm the bloodiest son of a wildcat that

lives!'

Then the man that had started the row tilted his old slouch hat down

over his right eye; then he bent stooping forward, with his back sagged

and his south end sticking out far, and his fists a-shoving out and

drawing in in front of him, and so went around in a little circle

about three times, swelling himself up and breathing hard. Then he

straightened, and jumped up and cracked his heels together three times,

before he lit again (that made them cheer), and he begun to shout like

this--

'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow's

a-coming! Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers a-working!

whoo-oop! I'm a child of sin, don't let me get a start! Smoked

glass, here, for all! Don't attempt to look at me with the naked

eye, gentlemen! When I'm playful I use the meridians of longitude and

parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for

whales! I scratch my head with the lightning, and purr myself to sleep

with the thunder! When I'm cold, I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathe

in it; when I'm hot I fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when I'm

thirsty I reach up and suck a cloud dry like a sponge; when I range the

earth hungry, famine follows in my tracks! Whoo-oop! Bow your neck and

spread! I put my hand on the sun's face and make it night in the earth;

I bite a piece out of the moon and hurry the seasons; I shake myself

and crumble the mountains! Contemplate me through leather--don't use the

naked eye! I'm the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! The

massacre of isolated communities is the pastime of my idle moments,

the destruction of nationalities the serious business of my life! The

boundless vastness of the great American desert is my enclosed property,

and I bury my dead on my own premises!' He jumped up and cracked his

heels together three times before he lit (they cheered him again), and

as he come down he shouted out: 'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for

the pet child of calamity's a-coming!'

Then the other one went to swelling around and blowing again--the first

one--the one they called Bob; next, the Child of Calamity chipped in

again, bigger than ever; then they both got at it at the same time,

swelling round and round each other and punching their fists most into

each other's faces, and whooping and jawing like Injuns; then Bob called

the Child names, and the Child called him names back again: next, Bob

called him a heap rougher names and the Child come back at him with the

very worst kind of language; next, Bob knocked the Child's hat off, and

the Child picked it up and kicked Bob's ribbony hat about six foot; Bob

went and got it and said never mind, this warn't going to be the last

of this thing, because he was a man that never forgot and never forgive,

and so the Child better look out, for there was a time a-coming, just

as sure as he was a living man, that he would have to answer to him with

the best blood in his body. The Child said no man was willinger than

he was for that time to come, and he would give Bob fair warning, now,

never to cross his path again, for he could never rest till he had waded

in his blood, for such was his nature, though he was sparing him now on

account of his family, if he had one.

Both of them was edging away in different directions, growling and

shaking their heads and going on about what they was going to do; but a

little black-whiskered chap skipped up and says--

'Come back here, you couple of chicken-livered cowards, and I'll thrash

the two of ye!'

And he done it, too. He snatched them, he jerked them this way and that,

he booted them around, he knocked them sprawling faster than they could

get up. Why, it warn't two minutes till they begged like dogs--and

how the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all the way

through, and shout 'Sail in, Corpse-Maker!' 'Hi! at him again, Child of

Calamity!' 'Bully for you, little Davy!' Well, it was a perfect pow-wow

for a while. Bob and the Child had red noses and black eyes when they

got through. Little Davy made them own up that they were sneaks and

cowards and not fit to eat with a dog or drink with a nigger; then Bob

and the Child shook hands with each other, very solemn, and said they

had always respected each other and was willing to let bygones be

bygones. So then they washed their faces in the river; and just then

there was a loud order to stand by for a crossing, and some of them went

forward to man the sweeps there, and the rest went aft to handle the

after-sweeps.

I laid still and waited for fifteen minutes, and had a smoke out of a

pipe that one of them left in reach; then the crossing was finished, and

they stumped back and had a drink around and went to talking and singing

again. Next they got out an old fiddle, and one played and another

patted juba, and the rest turned themselves loose on a regular

old-fashioned keel-boat break-down. They couldn't keep that up very long

without getting winded, so by and by they settled around the jug again.

They sung 'jolly, jolly raftman's the life for me,' with a rousing

chorus, and then they got to talking about differences betwixt hogs, and

their different kind of habits; and next about women and their different

ways: and next about the best ways to put out houses that was afire; and

next about what ought to be done with the Injuns; and next about what

a king had to do, and how much he got; and next about how to make cats

fight; and next about what to do when a man has fits; and next about

differences betwixt clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The man

they called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to drink

than the clear water of the Ohio; he said if you let a pint of this

yaller Mississippi water settle, you would have about a half to

three-quarters of an inch of mud in the bottom, according to the stage

of the river, and then it warn't no better than Ohio water--what you

wanted to do was to keep it stirred up--and when the river was low, keep

mud on hand to put in and thicken the water up the way it ought to be.

The Child of Calamity said that was so; he said there was nutritiousness

in the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water could grow corn in

his stomach if he wanted to. He says--

'You look at the graveyards; that tells the tale. Trees won't grow worth

chucks in a Cincinnati graveyard, but in a Sent Louis graveyard they

grow upwards of eight hundred foot high. It's all on account of the

water the people drunk before they laid up. A Cincinnati corpse don't

richen a soil any.'

And they talked about how Ohio water didn't like to mix with Mississippi

water. Ed said if you take the Mississippi on a rise when the Ohio is

low, you'll find a wide band of clear water all the way down the east

side of the Mississippi for a hundred mile or more, and the minute you

get out a quarter of a mile from shore and pass the line, it is all

thick and yaller the rest of the way across. Then they talked about how

to keep tobacco from getting moldy, and from that they went into ghosts

and told about a lot that other folks had seen; but Ed says--

'Why don't you tell something that you've seen yourselves? Now let me

have a say. Five years ago I was on a raft as big as this, and right

along here it was a bright moonshiny night, and I was on watch and boss

of the stabboard oar forrard, and one of my pards was a man named Dick

Allbright, and he come along to where I was sitting, forrard--gaping and

stretching, he was--and stooped down on the edge of the raft and washed

his face in the river, and come and set down by me and got out his pipe,

and had just got it filled, when he looks up and says--

'“Why looky-here,” he says, “ain't that Buck Miller's place, over yander

in the bend.”

'“Yes,” says I, “it is--why.” He laid his pipe down and leant his head

on his hand, and says--

'“I thought we'd be furder down.” I says--

'“I thought it too, when I went off watch”--we was standing six hours on

and six off--“but the boys told me,” I says, “that the raft didn't seem

to hardly move, for the last hour,” says I, “though she's a slipping

along all right, now,” says I. He give a kind of a groan, and says--

'“I've seed a raft act so before, along here,” he says, “'pears to me

the current has most quit above the head of this bend durin' the last

two years,” he says.

'Well, he raised up two or three times, and looked away off and around

on the water. That started me at it, too. A body is always doing what he

sees somebody else doing, though there mayn't be no sense in it. Pretty

soon I see a black something floating on the water away off to stabboard

and quartering behind us. I see he was looking at it, too. I says--

'“What's that?” He says, sort of pettish,--

'“Tain't nothing but an old empty bar'l.”

'“An empty bar'l!” says I, “why,” says I, “a spy-glass is a fool to your

eyes. How can you tell it's an empty bar'l?” He says--

'“I don't know; I reckon it ain't a bar'l, but I thought it might be,”

 says he.

'“Yes,” I says, “so it might be, and it might be anything else, too; a

body can't tell nothing about it, such a distance as that,” I says.

'We hadn't nothing else to do, so we kept on watching it. By and by I

says--

'“Why looky-here, Dick Allbright, that thing's a-gaining on us, I

believe.”

'He never said nothing. The thing gained and gained, and I judged it

must be a dog that was about tired out. Well, we swung down into

the crossing, and the thing floated across the bright streak of the

moonshine, and, by George, it was bar'l. Says I--

'“Dick Allbright, what made you think that thing was a bar'l, when it

was a half a mile off,” says I. Says he--

'“I don't know.” Says I--

'“You tell me, Dick Allbright.” He says--

'“Well, I knowed it was a bar'l; I've seen it before; lots has seen it;

they says it's a haunted bar'l.”

'I called the rest of the watch, and they come and stood there, and

I told them what Dick said. It floated right along abreast, now, and

didn't gain any more. It was about twenty foot off. Some was for having

it aboard, but the rest didn't want to. Dick Allbright said rafts that

had fooled with it had got bad luck by it. The captain of the watch

said he didn't believe in it. He said he reckoned the bar'l gained on us

because it was in a little better current than what we was. He said it

would leave by and by.

'So then we went to talking about other things, and we had a song, and

then a breakdown; and after that the captain of the watch called for

another song; but it was clouding up, now, and the bar'l stuck right

thar in the same place, and the song didn't seem to have much warm-up to

it, somehow, and so they didn't finish it, and there warn't any cheers,

but it sort of dropped flat, and nobody said anything for a minute. Then

everybody tried to talk at once, and one chap got off a joke, but it

warn't no use, they didn't laugh, and even the chap that made the joke

didn't laugh at it, which ain't usual. We all just settled down glum,

and watched the bar'l, and was oneasy and oncomfortable. Well, sir, it

shut down black and still, and then the wind begin to moan around, and

next the lightning begin to play and the thunder to grumble. And pretty

soon there was a regular storm, and in the middle of it a man that was

running aft stumbled and fell and sprained his ankle so that he had

to lay up. This made the boys shake their heads. And every time the

lightning come, there was that bar'l with the blue lights winking around

it. We was always on the look-out for it. But by and by, towards dawn,

she was gone. When the day come we couldn't see her anywhere, and we

warn't sorry, neither.

'But next night about half-past nine, when there was songs and high

jinks going on, here she comes again, and took her old roost on the

stabboard side. There warn't no more high jinks. Everybody got solemn;

nobody talked; you couldn't get anybody to do anything but set around

moody and look at the bar'l. It begun to cloud up again. When the watch

changed, the off watch stayed up, 'stead of turning in. The storm ripped

and roared around all night, and in the middle of it another man tripped

and sprained his ankle, and had to knock off. The bar'l left towards

day, and nobody see it go.

'Everybody was sober and down in the mouth all day. I don't mean the

kind of sober that comes of leaving liquor alone--not that. They was

quiet, but they all drunk more than usual--not together--but each man

sidled off and took it private, by himself.

'After dark the off watch didn't turn in; nobody sung, nobody talked;

the boys didn't scatter around, neither; they sort of huddled together,

forrard; and for two hours they set there, perfectly still, looking

steady in the one direction, and heaving a sigh once in a while. And

then, here comes the bar'l again. She took up her old place. She staid

there all night; nobody turned in. The storm come on again, after

midnight. It got awful dark; the rain poured down; hail, too; the

thunder boomed and roared and bellowed; the wind blowed a hurricane; and

the lightning spread over everything in big sheets of glare, and showed

the whole raft as plain as day; and the river lashed up white as milk

as far as you could see for miles, and there was that bar'l jiggering

along, same as ever. The captain ordered the watch to man the after

sweeps for a crossing, and nobody would go--no more sprained ankles for

them, they said. They wouldn't even walk aft. Well then, just then the

sky split wide open, with a crash, and the lightning killed two men of

the after watch, and crippled two more. Crippled them how, says you?

Why, sprained their ankles!

'The bar'l left in the dark betwixt lightnings, towards dawn. Well, not

a body eat a bite at breakfast that morning. After that the men loafed

around, in twos and threes, and talked low together. But none of them

herded with Dick Allbright. They all give him the cold shake. If he come

around where any of the men was, they split up and sidled away. They

wouldn't man the sweeps with him. The captain had all the skiffs hauled

up on the raft, alongside of his wigwam, and wouldn't let the dead men

be took ashore to be planted; he didn't believe a man that got ashore

would come back; and he was right.

'After night come, you could see pretty plain that there was going to be

trouble if that bar'l come again; there was such a muttering going on. A

good many wanted to kill Dick Allbright, because he'd seen the bar'l on

other trips, and that had an ugly look. Some wanted to put him ashore.

Some said, let's all go ashore in a pile, if the bar'l comes again.

'This kind of whispers was still going on, the men being bunched

together forrard watching for the bar'l, when, lo and behold you, here

she comes again. Down she comes, slow and steady, and settles into her

old tracks. You could a heard a pin drop. Then up comes the captain, and

says:--

'“Boys, don't be a pack of children and fools; I don't want this bar'l

to be dogging us all the way to Orleans, and _you _don't; well, then,

how's the best way to stop it? Burn it up,--that's the way. I'm going

to fetch it aboard,” he says. And before anybody could say a word, in he

went.

'He swum to it, and as he come pushing it to the raft, the men spread

to one side. But the old man got it aboard and busted in the head,

and there was a baby in it! Yes, sir, a stark naked baby. It was Dick

Allbright's baby; he owned up and said so.

'“Yes,” he says, a-leaning over it, “yes, it is my own lamented darling,

my poor lost Charles William Allbright deceased,” says he,--for he could

curl his tongue around the bulliest words in the language when he was a

mind to, and lay them before you without a jint started, anywheres. Yes,

he said he used to live up at the head of this bend, and one night he

choked his child, which was crying, not intending to kill it,--which was

prob'ly a lie,--and then he was scared, and buried it in a bar'l, before

his wife got home, and off he went, and struck the northern trail and

went to rafting; and this was the third year that the bar'l had chased

him. He said the bad luck always begun light, and lasted till four men

was killed, and then the bar'l didn't come any more after that. He

said if the men would stand it one more night,--and was a-going on like

that,--but the men had got enough. They started to get out a boat to

take him ashore and lynch him, but he grabbed the little child all of a

sudden and jumped overboard with it hugged up to his breast and shedding

tears, and we never see him again in this life, poor old suffering soul,

nor Charles William neither.'

'_Who _was shedding tears?' says Bob; 'was it Allbright or the baby?'