the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating,
black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon
the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings,
that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest,
was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines,
ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded,
and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place
by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest
wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed
like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun.
There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances;
and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted
steadily, enriching it, every passing moment, with new marvels of coloring.
I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture.
The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home.
But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories
and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon
the river’s face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them.
Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon
it without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, after
this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow;
that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it;
that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going
to kill somebody’s steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching
out like that; those tumbling ‘boils’ show a dissolving bar and a changing
channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder
are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously;
that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the ‘break’ from a new snag,
and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found
to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch,
is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through
this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark.
No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river.
All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount
of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting
of a steamboat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart.
What does the lovely flush in a beauty’s cheek mean to a doctor
but a ‘break’ that ripples above some deadly disease.
Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him
the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her
beauty at all, or doesn’t he simply view her professionally,
and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself?
And doesn’t he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost
most by learning his trade?
Chapter 10
Completing My Education
WHOSOEVER has done me the courtesy to read my chapters which have preceded
this may possibly wonder that I deal so minutely with piloting as a science.
It was the prime purpose of those chapters; and I am not quite done yet.
I wish to show, in the most patient and painstaking way, what a wonderful
science it is. Ship channels are buoyed and lighted, and therefore it is
a comparatively easy undertaking to learn to run them; clear-water rivers,
with gravel bottoms, change their channels very gradually, and therefore
one needs to learn them but once; but piloting becomes another matter
when you apply it to vast streams like the Mississippi and the Missouri,
whose alluvial banks cave and change constantly, whose snags are always
hunting up new quarters, whose sand-bars are never at rest, whose channels
are for ever dodging and shirking, and whose obstructions must be