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Mark Twain > Life On The Mississippi > Chapter 23

Life On The Mississippi

Chapter 23


                         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 lines. It was an easy plan to make,
and would have been an easy one to follow, twenty years ago-but not now.
There are wide intervals between boats, these days.

I wanted to begin with the interesting old French settlements
of St. Genevieve and Kaskaskia, sixty miles below St. Louis.
There was only one boat advertised for that section--
a Grand Tower packet. Still, one boat was enough; so we went
down to look at her. She was a venerable rack-heap, and a fraud
to boot; for she was playing herself for personal property,
whereas the good honest dirt was so thickly caked all over
her that she was righteously taxable as real estate.
There are places in New England where her hurricane deck
would be worth a hundred and fifty dollars an acre.
The soil on her forecastle was quite good--the new crop of wheat
was already springing from the cracks in protected places.
The companionway was of a dry sandy character, and would
have been well suited for grapes, with a southern exposure
and a little subsoiling. The soil of the boiler deck
was thin and rocky, but good enough for grazing purposes.
A colored boy was on watch here--nobody else visible.
We gathered from him that this calm craft would go, as advertised,
'if she got her trip;' if she didn't get it, she would wait
for it.

'Has she got any of her trip?'

'Bless you, no, boss. She ain't unloadened, yit. She only come
in dis mawnin'.'

He was uncertain as to when she might get her trip, but thought it
might be to-morrow or maybe next day. This would not answer at all;
so we had to give up the novelty of sailing down the river on a farm.
We had one more arrow in our quiver: a Vicksburg packet, the 'Gold Dust,'
was to leave at 5 P.M. We took passage in her for Memphis, and gave
up the idea of stopping off here and there, as being impracticable.
She was neat, clean, and comfortable. We camped on the boiler deck,
and bought some cheap literature to kill time with. The vender was a
venerable Irishman with a benevolent face and a tongue that worked easily
in the socket, and from him we learned that he had lived in St. Louis
thirty-four years and had never been across the river during that period.
Then he wandered into a very flowing lecture, filled with classic names
and allusions, which was quite wonderful for fluency until the fact became
rather apparent that this was not the first time, nor perhaps the fiftieth,
that the speech had been delivered. He was a good deal of a character,
and much better company than the sappy literature he was selling.
A random remark, connecting Irishmen and beer, brought this nugget of
information out of him--

They don't drink it, sir. They can't drink it, sir.
Give an Irishman lager for a month, and he's a dead man.
An Irishman is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it.
But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him, sir.'

At eight o'clock, promptly, we backed out and crossed the river.
As we crept toward the shore, in the thick darkness, a blinding
glory of white electric light burst suddenly from our forecastle,
and lit up the water and the warehouses as with a noon-day glare.
Another big change, this--no more flickering, smoky, pitch-dripping,
ineffectual torch-baskets, now: their day is past. Next, instead of
calling out a score of hands to man the stage, a couple of men and a
hatful of steam lowered it from the derrick where it was suspended,
launched it, deposited it in just the right spot, and the whole thing
was over and done with before a mate in the olden time could have
got his profanity-mill adjusted to begin the preparatory services.
Why this new and simple method of handling the stages was not thought
of when the first steamboat was built, is a mystery which helps one to
realize what a dull-witted slug the average human being is.

We finally got away at two in the morning, and when I turned out
at six, we were rounding to at a rocky point where there was an old
stone warehouse--at any rate, the ruins of it; two or three decayed
dwelling-houses were near by, in the shelter of the leafy hills;
but there were no evidences of human or other animal life to be seen.
I wondered if I had forgotten the river; for I had no recollection whatever
of this place; the shape of the river, too, was unfamiliar; there was
nothing in sight, anywhere, that I could remember ever having seen before.
I was surprised, disappointed, and annoyed.

We put ashore a well-dressed lady and gentleman, and two well-dressed,
lady-like young girls, together with sundry Russia-leather bags.
A strange place for such folk! No carriage was waiting.
The party moved off as if they had not expected any, and struck
down a winding country road afoot.

But the mystery was explained when we got under way again;
for these people were evidently bound for a large town which lay
shut in behind a tow-head (i.e., new island) a couple of miles
below this landing. I couldn't remember that town; I couldn't
place it, couldn't call its name. So I lost part of my temper.
I suspected that it might be St. Genevieve--and so it proved
to be. Observe what this eccentric river had been about:
it had built up this huge useless tow-head directly
in front of this town, cut off its river communications,
fenced it away completely, and made a 'country' town of it.
It is a fine old place, too, and deserved a better fate.
It was settled by the French, and is a relic of a time when one
could travel from the mouths of the Mississippi to Quebec and be
on French territory and under French rule all the way.

Presently I ascended to the hurricane deck and cast a longing
glance toward the pilot-house.


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