20

SCENES ALONG THE MISSOURI.

[1857.

One of our eastern passengers, pouring out half a pitcher-full for ablution, was utterly disgusted with its color in the white por celain basin.

'Here waiter,' he exclaimed, 'bring me clean water; somebody has washed in this.'

Its aspect quite justifies the Indian appellation of 'strong water,' and possibly accounts for the tendency of whites to the manner born, to weaken it with whisky. A novice fancies bathing in it must sadly soil any one not very dirty to begin with; but it proves soft and cleansing.

Only in the day's full glare is the stream revolting. Morning twilight, while the east is silvery, late evening when the west is blood-red, and moonlit night, all mellow and idealize it. Then every twig and leaf is penciled sharply upon clear sky, the turbid waters sheeny and sprinkled with stars, and the environing woods dreamy and tender. Often they are exquisitely tinted; and the night pictures of the despised Missouri, rival in beauty those of the familiar Hudson, and the far, stupendous Columbia.

The lofty ranges of Montana hem the chafing torrent into a narrow chasm, but through these prairies of Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri, its valley is often ten miles wide. In its long-ago stalwart youth, the great river filled this gorge with a mighty flood. Now, old and shrunken, it zigzags across from hill to hill. Never having a high bank upon both sides at once, it will be difficult to bridge for future railways.

We found most of the banks low, wooded, miasmatic bottomlands, dotted by a very few log-houses. Nature has been little disturbed by man. It is one vast wilderness with tree blazed here and there. The soil consists of sand deposits, those of a single year often a foot thick. It has no cohesiveness, and is cut by the water like sawdust. The shifting channel sometimes moves forty or fifty yards in a single week. Hundreds of huge trees lately undermined, and still in full leaf, lie in the water, clinging to the shore by one or two claw-like roots. When these give way, the trees float until the roots grasp and firmly imbed themselves in the sandy bottom. Then the sharp stems, often entirely under water, form snags, the special horror of Missouri navigation. Always pointing down stream, they are dangerous only to vessels

1857.] TERRORS OF MISSOURI NAVIGATION.

21

moving against the current. Thousands rise above the surface, frequently so thick that a boat can hardly find room for passing. Floating logs are caught upon these upright posts; the water pours over them in little cascades till they collect waifs and form a great tangled heap of drift-wood to be swept away by the first freshet. The fatal snags are hidden under water. When a steamer at full headway strikes one it often pierces her to the vitals. A few weeks after our passage, the Tropic, a first-class boat, moving ten miles an hour, ran upon one of these death-dealing spears. It penetrated her hull, pierced through the deck, pantry, and two state-rooms, and came out at the hurricane roof, breaking

the main pipe, deluging the cabin with hot steam, killing an engineer and leaving the wretched ship impaled like a fly upon a needle. No sagacity nor experience is proof against these unseen weapons, and one does not wonder at the wrinkled faces and premature gray hairs of pilots and captains. Even boats appear to share their terror. I could distinctly feel our steamer thrill with disgust when she ran upon a sand-bar, and shudder with horror at every snag grating against her keel.

Navigating the Missouri, at low water, is like putting a steamer upon dry land, and sending a boy ahead with a sprinkling pot.

22

A STORY OF STEAMBOAT RACING.

[1857. Our boat rubbed and scraped upon sand-bars, and they stopped us abruptly a dozen times a day. From the extreme bow on the lower deck a man sounds with line and plummet. Every minute or two, he reports in drawling sing-song, 'Four and a h-a-l-f,' 'F-i-v-e feet,' 'Quarter less t-w-a-i-n,' (a quarter fathom less than two fathoms,) 'M-a-r-k twain,' 'N-o bottom,' until the pilot rings his bell and the danger is past.

Compared with ocean vessels, these river steamers seem light and fragile as pasteboard, and if they take fire, they burn like tinder. But many run fifteen miles an hour with the current, carry enormous loads, and often pay for themselves in a single year. Still their hey-day is over. The conquering railway robs them of nearly all passengers, and much freight. Gone forever the era of universal racing, with all its attendant excitements;its pet steamers, high wagers, and fierce rivalry!

A good share of American human nature was exhibited by the old lady, who took passage, for the first time, on a steamboat, with several barrels of lard from her Kentucky plantation for the New Orleans market. Familiar with horrible legends of explosion, collision, midnight conflagration, she was tremblingly alive to the dangers of her position. She had extorted a solemn promise from the captain that there should be no racing, which relieved her pressing anxiety. But on the second day, a rival boat came in sight, and kept gaining upon them. Their speed was increased, but still, nearer and nearer came the rival until side by side the noble steamers wrestled for victory. Quivering in every tense nerve and strong muscle with the life and will and power that man had given them, they shot madly down the stream.

The passengers crowded the deck. Every pound of steam was put on. The old lady's nerves began to thrill with the general excitement. Life was sweet and lard precious, but what was death to being beaten ?

'Captain,' she implored, 'can't we go faster?'

'Not by burning wood,' was the reply; we might with oil.' At that moment the prow of the other steamer darted a few feet ahead. This was too much.

'Captain,' she shrieked, 'if you let that boat pass us, I'll never travel with you again. Knock open my lard barrels and fire up with them!'

1857.]

STOPPING TO 'WOOD UP.'

23

Upon this strange old river a boat stops wherever she likes, extemporizing a wharf by running out a staging to the bank for landing passengers and freight. After dark, we tied up to a tree in front of a wood-pile, where a shingle, nailed to a stake, was labelled 'Fore Dollars a cord.' By glaring torches we saw the well-drilled negro deck-hands follow each other briskly up the staging, out among the huge trees, and come back in endless procession, bending under enormous burdens of cottonwood. Almost as soon as our clerk could pay the owner, who mysteriously appeared from some hidden log-house in the forest, four cords were loaded, and we moved on. These dwellers in the wilderness, whose whole income is derived from selling wood to steamers, abound along the shores.

Thus we journey up against the strong current, which drains a continent, forming a great natural highway, for four thousand miles, from the gates of the Rocky Mountains to the southern gulf. This is the annual migration. Every spring hundreds of thousands of our countrymen go westward, as inevitably as wild geese fly south on the approach of winter. We are indeed 'A bivouac rather than a nation, a grand army moving from Atlantic to Pacific, and pitching tents by the way.' It is not from accident, or American restlessness, but Law fixed, inexorable as that compelling water to its level, or the magnet to its pole.

In all ages and countries, how uniform the course of civilization toward the setting sun-that Mecca which needs the memory of no prophet to draw thither its living pilgrims-that 'land beyond the river,' where Greek poet and American Indian, alike place the abode of their dead! From the dim confines of Egypt and China, has the spirit of Progress, like the fabled one of Jewish legend doomed to no respite from his wanderings, marched on-by Greece, Rome, and Western Europe, across the Atlantic, through Jamestown harbor, over Plymouth Rock-on, on, toward the serene Pacific. Ere long through the Golden Gate of San Francisco, it will go out by the islands of the sea to that dreamy Orient where it was born. And then-what?

On our crowded steamer every state-room is filled, and nightly the cabin floor is covered with sleepers upon mattresses. One can not promenade without endangering some unfortunate slum.

24

ORATION BY A STEAMBOAT GAMBLER. [1857.

berer, and calling forth expostulations, or curses, according to his ruling temperament. Forward, near the clerk's office, is a convocation of restless passengers around a little table. Upon it a gam bler with hang-dog face, wearing a white hat with broad band of black crape, has arrayed two or three gold and silver watches, with money, penknives, ear-rings, breast-pins, and other cheap articles, each in one of the little numbered squares of an oil cloth.

'Gentlemen,' he begins, 'you can throw the dice for fifty cents. For every figure you turn up there is a corresponding figure on the cloth, and you draw whatever rests upon it. There are no blanks. You may get this superb gold chronometer watch worth one hundred and forty dollars, or this magnificent English lever, which cost fifty dollars at wholesale, or this elegant silver goblet, cheap at ten dollars. You are certain to get some article worth twice your money.'

A backwoods Missouri boy in white wool hat and corduroys produces half a dollar, and with nervous hand throws the dice.

'All right, sir-two, five, fourteen. Fourteen draws these splendid gold ear-rings, worth three dollars and a half,' (actual value about one dime.). 'Try again, sir? Very well; here is your change. Luck again. Eight wins you this ten-dollar bead purse. Once more? Wait a minute; this gentleman's turn first. Sixteen. You have won that splendid enamel-cased ivoryhandled bowie. You'll try another? Certainly. Twenty-one. By Jove! you have the silver goblet. At this rate you'll break me in two hours; but I won't back out-not one of the backing. out kind. What will I give you for the knife and goblet? Five dollars. Take it, do you? Here's your money. Who will be the next lucky man? Keep the game lively, gentlemen.'

The gentlemen do keep it lively. That re-purchase was a master-stroke. It brings down the half dollars like rain, and the gambler reaps a rich harvest. The secret is, that the three or four really valuable articles are upon figures which the dice never exhibit, and on the others there is a profit of three or four hundred per cent. The victims are as profound philosophers as those who proposed to buy all the tickets in a lottery, and thus be sure of the prizes! They have failed to learn the great principle of commerce, that goods do not sell for less than cost.