forward and five feet aft, she was carefully loaded to that exact figure–
she wouldn’t enter a dose of homoeopathic pills on her manifest after that.
Hardly any passengers were taken, because they not only add weight but they
never will ‘trim boat.’ They always run to the side when there is anything
to see, whereas a conscientious and experienced steamboatman would stick to
the center of the boat and part his hair in the middle with a spirit level.
No way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the racers would
stop only at the largest towns, and then it would be only ‘touch and go.’
Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for beforehand, and these were
kept ready to hitch on to the flying steamers at a moment’s warning.
Double crews were carried, so that all work could be quickly done.
The chosen date being come, and all things in readiness,
the two great steamers back into the stream, and lie there
jockeying a moment, and apparently watching each other’s
slightest movement, like sentient creatures; flags drooping,
the pent steam shrieking through safety-valves, the black smoke
rolling and tumbling from the chimneys and darkening all the air.
People, people everywhere; the shores, the house-tops,
the steamboats, the ships, are packed with them, and you know
that the borders of the broad Mississippi are going to be
fringed with humanity thence northward twelve hundred miles,
to welcome these racers.
Presently tall columns of steam burst from the ‘scape-pipes
of both steamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes
mounted on capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews
on the forecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a few
waiting seconds, two mighty choruses burst forth–and here they come!
Brass bands bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from
the shores, and the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind.
Those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis,
except for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch thirty-cord
wood-boats alongside. You should be on board when they take a couple
of those wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each;
by the time you have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will be
wondering what has become of that wood.
Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day after day.
They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that pilots are not
all alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race. If one of the boats has
a ‘lightning’ pilot, whose ‘partner’ is a trifle his inferior, you can tell
which one is on watch by noting whether that boat has gained ground or lost
some during each four-hour stretch. The shrewdest pilot can delay a boat
if he has not a fine genius for steering. Steering is a very high art.
One must not keep a rudder dragging across a boat’s stem if he wants to get up
the river fast.
There is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was on
a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left port in.
But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used to lose
valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting for us
to get by. This was at still rarer intervals. I had the documents
for these occurrences, but through carelessness they have been mislaid.
This boat, the ‘John J. Roe,’ was so slow that when she finally sunk
in Madrid Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it.
That was always a confusing fact to me, but it is according to the record,
any way. She was dismally slow; still, we often had pretty
exciting times racing with islands, and rafts, and such things.
One trip, however, we did rather well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen days.
But even at this rattling gait I think we changed watches three times
in Fort Adams reach, which is five miles long. A ‘reach’ is a piece
of straight river, and of course the current drives through such a place