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 woods and fields for miles into the interior;
and in places, to a depth of fifteen feet; signs, all about,
of men's hard work gone to ruin, and all to be done
over again, with straitened means and a weakened courage.
A melancholy picture, and a continuous one;--hundreds of miles of it.
Sometimes the beacon lights stood in water three feet deep,
in the edge of dense forests which extended for miles without farm,
wood-yard, clearing, or break of any kind; which meant that
the keeper of the light must come in a skiff a great distance
to discharge his trust,--and often in desperate weather.
Yet I was told that the work is faithfully performed,
in all weathers; and not always by men, sometimes by women,
if the man is sick or absent. The Government furnishes oil,
and pays ten or fifteen dollars a month for the lighting and tending.
A Government boat distributes oil and pays wages once a month.
The Ship Island region was as woodsy and tenantless as ever.
The island has ceased to be an island; has joined itself compactly
to the main shore, and wagons travel, now, where the steamboats used
to navigate. No signs left of the wreck of the 'Pennsylvania.'
Some farmer will turn up her bones with his plow one day, no doubt,
and be surprised.
We were getting down now into the migrating negro region.
These poor people could never travel when they were slaves;
so they make up for the privation now. They stay on a plantation till
the desire to travel seizes them; then they pack up, hail a steamboat,
and clear out. Not for any particular place; no, nearly any
place will answer; they only want to be moving. The amount
of money on hand will answer the rest of the conundrum for them.
If it will take them fifty miles, very well; let it be fifty.
If not, a shorter flight will do.
During a couple of days, we frequently answered these hails.
Sometimes there was a group of high-water-stained, tumble-down cabins,
populous with colored folk, and no whites visible; with grassless
patches of dry ground here and there; a few felled trees,
with skeleton cattle, mules, and horses, eating the leaves and
gnawing the bark--no other food for them in the flood-wasted land.
Sometimes there was a single lonely landing-cabin; near it
the colored family that had hailed us; little and big, old and young,
roosting on the scant pile of household goods; these consisting
of a rusty gun, some bed-ticks, chests, tinware, stools, a crippled
looking-glass, a venerable arm-chair, and six or eight base-born
and spiritless yellow curs, attached to the family by strings.
They must have their dogs; can't go without their dogs.
Yet the dogs are never willing; they always object; so, one after another,
in ridiculous procession, they are dragged aboard; all four feet
braced and sliding along the stage, head likely to be pulled off;
but the tugger marching determinedly forward, bending to his work,
with the rope over his shoulder for better purchase.
Sometimes a child is forgotten and left on the bank; but never
a dog.
The usual river-gossip going on in the pilot-house. Island No. 63--
an island with a lovely 'chute,' or passage, behind it in the former times.
They said Jesse Jamieson, in the 'Skylark,' had a visiting pilot
with him one trip--a poor old broken-down, superannuated fellow--
left him at the wheel, at the foot of 63, to run off the watch.
The ancient mariner went up through the chute, and down the river outside;
and up the chute and down the river again; and yet again and again;
and handed the boat over to the relieving pilot, at the end of three
hours of honest endeavor, at the same old foot of the island where
he had originally taken the wheel! A darkey on shore who had observed
the boat go by, about thirteen times, said, ' 'clar to gracious,
I wouldn't be s'prised if dey's a whole line o' dem Sk'ylarks! '
Anecdote illustrative of influence of reputation in the changing
of opinion. The 'Eclipse' was renowned for her swiftness.
One day she passed along; an old darkey on shore, absorbed in
his own matters, did not notice what steamer it was.
Presently someone asked--
'Any boat gone up?'
'Yes, sah.'
'Was she going fast?'
'Oh, so-so--loafin' along.'
'Now, do you know what boat that was?'
'No, sah.'
'Why, uncle, that was the "Eclipse." '
'No! Is dat so? Well, I bet it was--cause she jes' went by here a-SPARKLIN'!'
Piece of history illustrative of the violent style of some of the people
down along here, During the early weeks of high water, A's fence rails
washed down on B's ground, and B's rails washed up in the eddy and landed
on A's ground. A said, 'Let the thing remain so; I will use your rails,
and you use mine.' But B objected--wouldn't have it so. One day,
A came down on B's ground to get his rails. B said, 'I'll kill you!'
and proceeded for him with his revolver. A said, 'I'm not armed.'
So B, who wished to do only what was right, threw down his revolver;
then pulled a knife, and cut A's throat all around, but gave his
principal attention to the front, and so failed to sever the jugular.
Struggling around, A managed to get his hands on the discarded revolver,
and shot B dead with it--and recovered from his own injuries.
Further gossip;--after which, everybody went below to get
afternoon coffee, and left me at the wheel, alone,
Something presently reminded me of our last hour in St. Louis,
part of which I spent on this boat's hurricane deck, aft.
I was joined there by a stranger, who dropped into conversation
with me--a brisk young fellow, who said he was born in a town
in the interior of Wisconsin, and had never seen a steamboat
until a week before. Also said that on the way down from La
Crosse he had inspected and examined his boat so diligently
and with such passionate interest that he had mastered the whole
thing from stem to rudder-blade. Asked me where I was from.
I answered, New England. 'Oh, a Yank!' said he; and went
chatting straight along, without waiting for assent or denial.
He immediately proposed to take me all over the boat and tell
me the names of her different parts, and teach me their uses.
Before I could enter protest or excuse, he was already
rattling glibly away at his benevolent work; and when I
perceived that he was misnaming the things, and inhospitably
amusing himself at the expense of an innocent stranger from
a far country, I held my peace, and let him have his way.
He gave me a world of misinformation; and the further he went,
the wider his imagination expanded, and the more he enjoyed
his cruel work of deceit. Sometimes, after palming off
a particularly fantastic and outrageous lie upon me, he was
so 'full of laugh' that he had to step aside for a minute,
upon one pretext or another, to keep me from suspecting.
I staid faithfully by him until his comedy was finished.
Then he remarked that he had undertaken to 'learn' me
all about a steamboat, and had done it; but that if he had
overlooked anything, just ask him and he would supply the lack.
'Anything about this boat that you don't know the name
of or the purpose of, you come to me and I'll tell you.'
I said I would, and took my departure; disappeared, and approached
him from another quarter, whence he could not see me.
There he sat, all alone, doubling himself up and writhing
this way and that, in the throes of unappeasable laughter.
He must have made himself sick; for he was not publicly visible
afterward for several days. Meantime, the episode dropped out
of my mind.
The thing that reminded me of it now, when I was alone at the wheel,
was the spectacle of this young fellow standing in the pilot-house door,
with the knob in his hand, silently and severely inspecting me.
I don't know when I have seen anybody look so injured as he did.
He did not say anything--simply stood there and looked;
reproachfully looked and pondered. Finally he shut the door,
and started away; halted on the texas a minute; came slowly back
and stood in the door again, with that grieved look in his face;
gazed upon me awhile in meek rebuke, then said--
'You let me learn you all about a steamboat, didn't you?'
'Yes,' I confessed.
'Yes, you did--DIDN'T you?'
'Yes.'
' You are the feller that--that-- --'
Language failed. Pause--impotent struggle for further words--
then he gave it up, choked out a deep, strong oath, and departed for good.
Afterward I saw him several times below during the trip; but he was cold--
would not look at me. Idiot, if he had not been in such a sweat
to play his witless practical joke upon me, in the beginning,
I would have persuaded his thoughts into some other direction,
and saved him from committing that wanton and silly impoliteness.
I had myself called with the four o'clock watch, mornings,
for one cannot see too many summer sunrises on the Mississippi.
They are enchanting. First, there is the eloquence of silence;
for a deep hush broods everywhere. Next, there is the haunting
sense of loneliness, isolation, remoteness from the worry
and bustle of the world. The dawn creeps in stealthily;
the solid walls of black forest soften to gray, and vast
stretches of the river open up and reveal themselves; the water
is glass-smooth, gives off spectral little wreaths of white mist,
there is not the faintest breath of wind, nor stir of leaf;
the tranquillity is profound and infinitely satisfying.
Then a bird pipes up, another follows, and soon the pipings
develop into a jubilant riot of music. You see none of the birds;
you simply move through an atmosphere of song which seems
to sing itself. When the light has become a little stronger,
you have one of the fairest and softest pictures imaginable.
You have the intense green of the massed and crowded foliage
near by; you see it paling shade by shade in front of you;
upon the next projecting cape, a mile off or more, the tint
has lightened to the tender young green of spring; the cape
beyond that one has almost lost color, and the furthest one,
miles away under the horizon, sleeps upon the water a mere
dim vapor, and hardly separable from the sky above it
and about it. And all this stretch of river is a mirror,
and you have the shadowy reflections of the leafage and
the curving shores and the receding capes pictured in it.
Well, that is all beautiful; soft and rich and beautiful;
and when the sun gets well up, and distributes a pink flush
here and a powder of gold yonder and a purple haze where it will
yield the best effect, you grant that you have seen something
that is worth remembering.
We had the Kentucky Bend country in the early morning--
scene of a strange and tragic accident in the old times,
Captain Poe had a small stern-wheel boat, for years the home
of himself and his wife. One night the boat struck a snag in
the head of Kentucky Bend, and sank with astonishing suddenness;
water already well above the cabin floor when the captain got aft.
So he cut into his wife's state-room from above with an ax;
she was asleep in the upper berth, the roof a flimsier one than
was supposed; the first blow crashed down through the rotten
boards and clove her skull.
This bend is all filled up now--result of a cut-off; and the same
agent has taken the great and once much-frequented Walnut Bend,
and set it away back in a solitude far from the accustomed track
of passing steamers.
Helena we visited, and also a town I had not heard of before, it being
of recent birth--Arkansas City. It was born of a railway; the Little Rock,
Mississippi River and Texas Railroad touches the river there.
We asked a passenger who belonged there what sort of a place it was.
'Well,' said he, after considering, and with the air of one who
wishes to take time and be accurate, 'It's a hell of a place.'
A description which was photographic for exactness. There were
several rows and clusters of shabby frame-houses, and a supply of mud
sufficient to insure the town against a famine in that article
for a hundred years; for the overflow had but lately subsided.
There were stagnant ponds in the streets, here and there, and a dozen
rude scows were scattered about, lying aground wherever they happened
to have been when the waters drained off and people could do their
visiting and shopping on foot once more. Still, it is a thriving place,
with a rich country behind it, an elevator in front of it,
and also a fine big mill for the manufacture of cotton-seed oil.
I had never seen this kind of a mill before.
Cotton-seed was comparatively valueless in my time; but it
is worth $12 or $13 a ton now, and none of it is thrown away.
The oil made from it is colorless, tasteless, and almost if not
entirely odorless. It is claimed that it can, by proper manipulation,
be made to resemble and perform the office of any and all oils,
and be produced at a cheaper rate than the cheapest of the originals.
Sagacious people shipped it to Italy, doctored it, labeled it,
and brought it back as olive oil. This trade grew to be so formidable
that Italy was obliged to put a prohibitory impost upon it to keep it
from working serious injury to her oil industry.
Helena occupies one of the prettiest situations on the Mississippi.
Her perch is the last, the southernmost group of hills which one sees
on that side of the river. In its normal condition it is a pretty town;
but the flood (or possibly the seepage) had lately been ravaging it;
whole streets of houses had been invaded by the muddy water,
and the outsides of the buildings were still belted with a broad stain
extending upwards from the foundations. Stranded and discarded scows lay
all about; plank sidewalks on stilts four feet high were still standing;
the board sidewalks on the ground level were loose and ruinous,--
a couple of men trotting along them could make a blind man think
a cavalry charge was coming; everywhere the mud was black and deep,
and in many places malarious pools of stagnant water were standing.
A Mississippi inundation is the next most wasting and desolating
infliction to a fire.
We had an enjoyable time here, on this sunny Sunday:
two full hours' liberty ashore while the boat discharged freight.
In the back streets but few white people were visible,
but there were plenty of colored folk--mainly women and girls;
and almost without exception upholstered in bright new clothes
of swell and elaborate style and cut--a glaring and hilarious
contrast to the mournful mud and the pensive puddles.
Helena is the second town in Arkansas, in point of population--
which is placed at five thousand. The country about it is
exceptionally productive. Helena has a good cotton trade;
handles from forty to sixty thousand bales annually; she has
a large lumber and grain commerce; has a foundry, oil mills,
machine shops and wagon factories--in brief has $1,000,000
invested in manufacturing industries. She has two railways,
and is the commercial center of a broad and prosperous region.
Her gross receipts of money, annually, from all sources, are placed by
the New Orleans 'Times-Democrat' at $4,000,000.
