With the World's Great Travellers Volume I Part 6

The Mississippi and the Ohio come together at an acute angle, and their waters flow down in unmingled currents, differing in color, for a long distance. Even at night we could distinguish the line which divides them. The Ohio water is filled with fine sand and loam; the Mississippi is discolored with clay besides, and the water looks like a tub of soapsuds after a hard day's washing.

Whoever looks upon the map with a utilitarian eye sees at the confluence of these great rivers a favorable point for a great city. A few years since an English company took possession of or purchased this site, and, with a capital of nearly a million of pounds sterling, commenced operations. They lithographed plans of the city and views of the public buildings. There were domes, spires, and cupolas, hotels, warehouses, and lines of steamboats along both rivers. How fair, how magnificent it all looked on the India paper! You should see the result as I saw it in the misty miasma, by the pale moonlight. Cairo is a swamp, overflowed by every rise of either river. The large hotel, one of the two buildings erected, is slowly sinking beneath the surface. Piles will not stand up, and, however deep they are driven, sink still deeper. The present business of the place, consisting of selling supplies to steamboats, and transferring pa.s.sengers from the down- to the up-river boats, is done on floating store-boats, made fast to the sh.o.r.e. Cairo has since been built into a considerable town by dyking out the rivers, and was an important naval and military point during the Civil War....

This is my thirteenth day of steamboating,--the usual time across the Atlantic,--and I have four days more at least. You may well suppose that a hundred pa.s.sengers are put to their trumps for amus.e.m.e.nt. The "Wandering Jew" did very well as long as it lasted. Some keep on reading novels, having laid in a stock or exchanged with other pa.s.sengers, but cards are the resource of the majority. The centre-tables, as soon as breakfast is over, are occupied with parties playing poker or loo, and are covered with bank-notes and silver. Many who do not play look on to see the frolics of fortune. Several of these players are professional gamesters, and quite cool, as men who hope to win by chance or skill ought to be. Others, in their flushing cheeks and trembling hands and voices, show how the pa.s.sion is fastening upon them. These are driven by weariness and tempted by the smallness of the game to commence playing. The pa.s.sion increases day by day, and so do the stakes, until, before reaching New Orleans, the verdant ones have lost all their money, and with it their self-respect and their confidence in the future.

Depressed by shame, disheartened at being in a strange city without money, they are in a miserable condition, and ready to throw themselves away. They become dependent upon the blacklegs who have led them on, are instructed in their evil courses, made their tools and catspaws, and perhaps induced to enter upon courses of crime of a more dangerous character. All this comes of playing cards to kill time on the Mississippi.

While those who need the excitement of betting play at games of bluff and poker, some amuse themselves with whist, and old-fashioned fellows get into a corner and have a bout at old sledge; and now at eleven o'clock the great cabin of our boat presents a curious appearance.

Playing around the tables, with noisy, joyous laughter, are half a dozen merry little boys and girls. These have all got well acquainted with each other, and seem to enjoy themselves thoroughly.

I can give you little idea of this portion of the Mississippi. The river is very low, and does not seem large enough to be the outlet of the thousand streams above; for the waters on which we float come not only from the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains, but there are mingled with them the bright springs of Western New York, a large part of Pennsylvania, part of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and a large portion of the Western States. Yet, with all the waters of this vast area, our boat can sometimes scarcely keep the channel. Last night, running at her full speed, she went crashing into a snag, with a concussion and sc.r.a.ping which woke us all up, and made the timid ones spring out of their berths. Our safety was in our going down-stream instead of up,--the difference of rubbing the back of a hedgehog the right and the wrong way. These snags are great trees which cave off and are washed down the current; the roots become embedded in the bottom; and the stem and branches, pointing down-stream, and half or wholly covered with water, form a terrible _steamboat de frise_, which tears an ascending steamboat to pieces, but generally allows those going with the current to pa.s.s over or through them with safety.

The river is full of islands, so that you often see but a small portion of its waters; it winds along in so many convolutions that you must steam a hundred miles often to make twenty in a straight line. Many of these bends may be avoided at high water by taking the cross cuts, called "running a _chute_" when the whole country for twenty miles on each side is submerged.

Usually, on one side or the other, there is a perpendicular bank of clay and loam some thirty feet high, and here and there are small plantations. The river gradually wears them off, carrying down whole acres in a season. From this bank the land descends back to the swamps which skirt nearly the whole length of the river. These in very low water are comparatively dry, but as the river rises they fill up, and the whole country is like a great lake, filled with a dense growth of timber. These curving banks, the rude and solitary huts of the wood-cutters, the vast bars of sand, covered gradually with cane-brake, and the range of impenetrable forest for hundreds of miles, comprise a vast gloomy landscape, which must be seen to be realized....

While the scene is fresh in my memory let me describe to you my last morning upon the Mississippi. But why do I speak thus of a scene which can never fade from my remembrance, but in all future years will glow the brightest picture which nature and civilization have daguerreotyped upon my heart?

I rose before the sun, while all the east was glowing with his refracted light. The steamboat had made excellent progress all night, not being obliged to stop by fog, and was only detained a short time by running plump into the mud on the river's bank; but she soon backed out of that sc.r.a.pe.

We had here, fifty miles above New Orleans, an almost tropical sunrise.

The Mississippi, as if tired of its irregularities, flowed on an even current between its low banks, along which on each side are raised embankments of earth from four to ten feet in height,--the levee, which extends for hundreds of miles along the river, defending the plantations from being overflowed at high water.

As I gained the hurricane-deck the scene was enchanting, and, alas! I fear indescribable. On each side, as far as the eye could reach, were scattered the beautiful houses of the planters, flanked on each side by the huts of their negroes, with trees, shrubbery, and gardens. For miles away, up and down the river, extended the bright green fields of sugar-cane, looking more like great fields of Indian corn than any crop to which a Northern eye is familiar, but surpa.s.sing that in vividness of the tints and density of growth, the cane growing ten feet high, and the leaves at the top covering the whole surface. Back of these immense fields of bright green were seen the darker shades of the cypress swamp, and, to give the most picturesque effect to the landscape, on every side, in the midst of each great plantation, rose the tall white towers of the sugar-mills, throwing up graceful columns of smoke and clouds of steam. The sugar-making process was in full operation.

After the wild desolation of the Mississippi, for more than half its course below the Ohio, you will not wonder that I gazed upon this scene of wealth and beauty in a sort of ecstasy. Oh! how unlike our November in the far, bleak north was this scene of life in Louisiana! The earth seemed a paradise of fertility and loveliness. The sun rose and lighted up with a brighter radiance a landscape of which I had not imagined half its beauty.

The steamer stopped to wood, and I sprang on sh.o.r.e. Well, the air was as soft and delicious as our last days in June,--the gardens were filled with flowers; yes, bushels of roses were blooming for those who chose to pluck them; while oranges were turning their green to gold, and figs were ripening in the sun. It was a Creole plantation,--French the only language heard. A procession of carts, each drawn by a pair of mules, and driven by a fat and happy negro, who seemed to joke with every motion and laugh all over from head to foot, came from the sugar-house to get wood, of which an immense quant.i.ty was lying upon the banks of the river, saved from the vast ma.s.s of forest trees washed down at every freshet.

I cannot describe the appropriateness of everything on these plantations. These Creole planters look as if nature had formed them for good masters; in any other sphere they are out of their element,--here most decidedly at home. The negroes, male and female, seem made on purpose for their masters, and the mules were certainly made on purpose for the negroes. Any imaginable change would destroy this harmonious relation. Do they not all enjoy alike this paradise,--this scene of plenty and enchantment? The negroes work and are all the better for such beneficial exercise, as they would be all the worse without it. They have their feasts, their holidays,--more liberty than thousands of New York mechanics enjoy in their lifetimes, and a freedom from care and anxiety which a poor white man never knows. I begin to think that Paradise is on the banks of the Mississippi, and that the nearest approach to the realization of the schemes of Fourier is on our Southern plantations.

FROM NEW ORLEANS TO RED RIVER.

FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED.

[We have given a descriptive sketch of steamboat travel down the Ohio and Mississippi in the first half of the century, in what we may almost call the days of the barbarians. It is here followed by a sketch of steamboating, from New Orleans to and up the Red River, in the ante-war period, in which will be found methods as unprogressive and people as uncivilized as in any period of modern travel. The getting off was a marvel of procrastination, worthy of the most primitive days of American travel.]

On a certain Sat.u.r.day morning, when I had determined on the trip, I found that two boats, the "Swamp Fox" and the "St. Charles," were advertised to leave the same evening for the Red River. I went to the levee, and finding the "St. Charles" to be the better of the two, I asked her clerk if I could engage a state-room. There was just one state-room berth left unengaged; I was requested to place my name against its number on the pa.s.senger book; and did so, understanding that it was thus secured for me.

Having taken leave of my friends, I had my luggage brought down, and went on board at half-past three,--the boat being advertised to sail at four. Four o'clock pa.s.sed, and freight was still being taken on,--a fire had been made in the furnace, and the boat's big bell was rung. I noticed that the "Swamp Fox" was also firing up, and that her bell rang whenever ours did,--though she was not advertised to sail till five. At length, when five o'clock came, the clerk told me he thought, perhaps, they would not be able to get off at all that night,--there was so much freight still to come on board. Six o'clock arrived, and he felt certain that, if they did get off that night, it would not be till very late. At half-past six he said the captain had not come on board yet, and he was quite sure they would not be able to get off that night. I prepared to return to the hotel, and asked if they would leave in the morning. He thought not. He was confident they would not. He was positive they could not leave now before Monday,--Monday noon. Monday at twelve o'clock,--I might rely upon it.

Monday morning the _Picayune_ stated, editorially, that the floating palace, the "St. Charles," would leave for Shreveport at five o'clock, and if anybody wanted to make a quick and luxurious trip up Red River with a jolly good soul, Captain Lickup was in command. It also stated, in another paragraph, that if any of its friends had any business up Red River, Captain Pitchup was a whole-souled veteran in that trade, and was going up with that remarkably low-draught favorite, the "Swamp Fox," to leave at four o'clock that evening. Both boats were also announced, in the advertising columns, to leave at four o'clock.

As the clerk had said noon, however, I thought there might have been a misprint in the newspaper announcements, and so went on board the "St.

Charles" again before twelve. The clerk informed me that the newspaper was right,--they had finally concluded not to sail until four o'clock.

Before four I returned again, and the boat again fired up, and rung her bell. So did the "Swamp Fox." Neither, however, was quite ready to leave at four o'clock. Not quite ready at five. Even at six--not yet quite ready. At seven, the fires having burned out in the furnace, and the stevedores having gone away, leaving a quant.i.ty of freight yet on the dock, without advising this time with the clerk, I had my baggage re-transferred to the hotel.

A similar performance was repeated on Tuesday.

On Wednesday I found the berth I had engaged occupied by a very strong man, who was not very polite when I informed him that I believed there was some mistake,--that the berth he was using had been engaged to me. I went to the clerk, who said that he was sorry, but that, as I had not stayed on board that night, and had not paid for the berth, he had not been sure that I should go, and he had, therefore, given it to the gentleman who now had it in possession, and whom, he thought, it would not be best to try to reason out of it. He was very busy, he observed, because the boat was going to start at four o'clock; if I would now pay him the price of pa.s.sage, he would do the best he could for me. When he had time to examine, he would probably put me in some other state-room, perhaps quite as good a one as that I had lost. Meanwhile, he kindly offered me the temporary use of his private state-room. I inquired if it was quite certain that the boat would get off at four; for I had been asked to dine with a friend at three o'clock. There was not the smallest doubt of it,--at four they would leave. They were all ready at that moment, and only waited till four because the agent had advertised that they would,--merely a technical point of honor.

But, by some error of calculation, I suppose, she didn't go at four. Nor at five. Nor at six.

At seven o'clock the "Swamp Fox" and the "St. Charles" were both discharging dense smoke from their chimneys, blowing steam, and ringing bells. It was obvious that each was making every exertion to get off before the other. The captains of both boats stood at the break of the hurricane-deck, apparently waiting in great impatience for the mails to come on board.

The "St. Charles" was crowded with pa.s.sengers, and her decks were piled high with freight. b.u.mboatmen, about the bows, were offering sh.e.l.ls, and oranges, and bananas; and newsboys, and peddlers, and tract distributors were squeezing about with their wares among the pa.s.sengers. I had confidence in their instinct; there had been no such numbers of them the previous evenings, and I made up my mind, although past seven o'clock, that the "St. Charles" would not let her fires go down again.

Among the peddlers there were two of cheap "literature," and among their yellow covers each had two or three copies of the cheap edition (pamphlet) of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." They did not cry it out as they did the other books they had, but held it forth among others, so that its t.i.tle could be seen. One of them told me he carried it because gentlemen often inquired for it, and he sold a good many; at least three copies were sold to pa.s.sengers on the boat....

It was twenty minutes after seven when the captain observed,--scanning the levee in every direction to see if there was another cart or carriage coming towards us,--"No use waiting any longer, I reckon: throw off, Mr. Heady." (The "Swamp Fox" did not leave, I afterwards heard, till the following Sat.u.r.day.)

We backed out, winded round head up, and as we began to breast the current, a dozen of the negro boat-hands, standing on the freight piled up on the low forecastle, began to sing, waving hats and handkerchiefs, and shirts lashed to poles, towards the people who stood on the sterns of the steamboats at the levee.

After losing a few lines, I copied literally into my note-book:

"Ye see dem boat way dah ahead.

Chorus.--Oahoiohieu.

De San Charles is arter 'em, dey mus' go behine.

Oahoiohieu.

So stir up dah, my livelies, stir her up.

Oahoiohieu.

Dey's burnin' not'n but fat and rosum.

Oahoiohieu.

Oh, we is gwine up de Red River, oh!

Oahoiohieu.

Oh, we mus' part from you dah asho'.

Oahoiohieu.

Gib my lub to Dinah, oh!

Oahoiohieu."...

The wit introduced into these songs has, I suspect, been rather over-estimated.

As soon as the song was ended, I went into the cabin to remind the clerk to obtain a berth for me. I found two brilliant supper-tables reaching the whole length of the long cabin, and a file of men standing on each side of both of them, ready to take seats as soon as the signal was given.

The clerk was in his room, with two other men, and appeared to be more occupied than ever. His manner was, I thought, now rather cool, not to say rude; and he very distinctly informed me that every berth was occupied, and he didn't know where I was to sleep. He judged I was able to take care of myself; and if I was not, he was quite sure he had too much to do to give all his time to my surveillance. I then went to the commander, and told him that I thought myself ent.i.tled to a berth. I had paid for one, and should not have taken pa.s.sage in the boat if it had not been promised me. I was not disposed to fight for it, particularly as the gentleman occupying the berth engaged to me was a deal bigger fellow than I, and also carried a bigger knife, but I thought the clerk was accountable to me for a berth, and I begged that he would inform him so. He replied that the clerk probably knew his business; he had nothing to do with it; and walked away from me. I then addressed myself to a second clerk, or sub-officer of some denomination, who more good-naturedly informed me that half the company were in the same condition as myself, and I needn't be alarmed, cots would be provided for us.

As I saw that the supper-table was likely to be crowded, I asked if there would be a second table. "Yes, they'll keep on eating till they all get through." I walked the deck till I saw those who had been first seated at the table coming out; then, going in, I found the table still crowded, while many stood waiting to take seats as fast as any were vacated. I obtained one for myself at length, and had no sooner occupied it than two half-intoxicated and garrulous men took the adjoining stools.

It was near nine o'clock before the tables were cleared away, and immediately afterwards the waiters began to rig a framework for sleeping-cots in their place. These cots were simply canvas shelves, five feet and a half long, two wide, and less than two feet apart, perpendicularly. A waiter, whose good will I had purchased at the supper-table, gave me a hint to secure one of them for myself, as soon as they were erected, by putting my hat in it. I did so, and saw that others did the same. I chose a cot as near as possible to the midship door of the cabin, perceiving that there was not likely to be the best possible air, after all the pa.s.sengers were laid up for the night in this compact manner.

Nearly as fast as the cots were ready they were occupied. To make sure that mine was not stolen from me, I also, without much undressing, laid myself away. A single blanket was the only bedclothing provided. I had not lain long before I was driven, by an exceedingly offensive smell, to search for a cleaner neighborhood; but I found all the cots, fore and aft, were either occupied or engaged. I immediately returned, and that I might have a _dernier ressort_, left my shawl in that I had first obtained.

In the forward part of the cabin there was a bar, a stove, a table, and a placard of rules, forbidding smoking, gambling, or swearing in the cabin, and a close company of drinkers, smokers, card-players, and constant swearers. I went out, and stepped down to the boiler-deck. The boat had been provided with very poor wood, and the firemen were crowding it into the furnaces whenever they could find room for it, driving smaller sticks between the larger ones at the top by a battering-ram method.

Most of the firemen were Irish born; one with whom I conversed was English. He said they were divided into three watches, each working four hours at a time, and all hands liable to be called, when wooding, or landing, or taking on freight, to a.s.sist the deck-hands. They were paid now but thirty dollars a month--ordinarily forty, and sometimes sixty--and board. He was a sailor bred. This boat-life was harder than seafaring, but the pay was better, and the trips were short. The regular thing was to make two trips, and then lay up for a spree. It would be too hard on a man, he thought, to pursue it regularly; two trips "on end" was as much as a man could stand. He must then take a "refreshment." Working this way for three weeks, and then refreshing for about one, he did not think it was unhealthy, no more than ordinary seafaring. He concluded by informing me that the most striking peculiarity of the business was that it kept a man, notwithstanding wholesale periodical refreshment, very dry. He was of opinion that after the information I had obtained, if I gave him at least the price of a single drink and some tobacco, it would be characteristic of a gentleman.