Four Months in a Sneak-Box — Chapter VII, DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI TO NEW ORLEANS (Part 1)

DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI TO NEW ORLEANS

A FLATBOAT BOUND FOR TEXAS.

-- A FLAT-MAN ON RIVER PHYSICS.

-- ADRIFT

AND ASLEEP.

-- SEEKING THE EARTH'S LITTLE MOON.

-- VICKSBURGH.

-- JEFFERSON DAVIS'S COTTON PLANTATION, AND ITS NEGRO OWNER.

-- DYING IN

HIS BOAT.

-- HOW TO CIVILIZE CHINESE.

-- A SWIM OF ONE HUNDRED AND

TWENTY MILES ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

-- TWENTY-FOUR HOURS IN THE WATER.

-- ARRIVAL IN THE CRESCENT CITY.

DURING the afternoon, while rowing out of the cut-off behind an island, I caught sight of a flatboat floating in the contour of a distant bend.

There was something familiar in her appearance, and, as I drew nearer, I recognized the pile of nets, the rusty stove, and the civil but silent crew.

She was the same flat which had left Hickman, Kentucky, the morning I had departed from that town with my basket of pies.

This time the crew seemed like old friends.

River life makes all men equal.

A pleasant hail now greeted me, and the duck-boat was soon moored to the side of the flat.

As we floated along with the current, sipping our coffee, the captain told me his history.

The war had reduced him from affluence to poverty, and in order to support his family, he had built a scow and penetrated the weird waters of Reelfoot Lake, from which he was able, for several years, to supply the citizens of Hickman with excellent fish.

The enterprise was a novelty at that time, and there being no competition, he made four thousand dollars the first year.

After that others went into the business, and it became profitless.

His mind was now bent upon a new field.

Hearing that the people of northern Texas were destitute of a regular fish-market, he had provisioned his flat for a winter's campaign, and intended floating with his men down to the mouth of Red River, where he would be towed by a steamer through the state of Louisiana to the northeastern end of Texas.

There entering Caddo Lake, which is from fifty to sixty miles long, and where game, ducks, and fish abound, he would camp upon the shores and set his nets.

The railroads which penetrated that section would afford means for the rapid distribution of his fish.

The party, anxious to arrive at their scene of action, floated night and day.

The society of an educated man was so delightful at the time that I remained beside the flat all night.

A lantern was hung above the bow of the boat to show the pilots of steamers our position.

Whenever one of these disturbers of our peace passed the flat, I was obliged to cast off and pull into the stream, as the swash would almost ingulf me if I remained tied to the side of the large boat.

I

could only sleep by snatches, for just as I would be dropping off into the land of Nod, the watch upon the flat would call out, "Here comes another steamer," which was the signal for me to take to my oars.

The next day was Sunday, but the flat kept on her way.

I cooked my meals upon the rusty stove, and we floated side by side, conversing hour after hour.

The low banks of the river showed the presence of levees, or artificial dikes, built to keep out the freshets.

Upon these dikes the grass was putting forth its tender blades, and the willows were bursting into leaf.

We passed White River and the Arkansas, both of which pour their waters out of the great wilderness of the state of Arkansas.

Below the mouth of the last-named river was the town of Napoleon, with its deserted houses, the most forlorn aspect that had yet met my eye.

The banks were caving into the river day by day.

Houses had fallen into the current, which was undermining the town.

Here and there chimneys were standing in solitude, the buildings having been torn down and removed to other localities to save them from the insatiable maw of the river.

These pointed upward like so many warning cenotaphs of the river's treachery, and contrasted strongly in the mind's eye with the many happy family circles which had once gathered at their bases around the cheerful hearths.

About ten o'clock in the forenoon the proprietor of the flatboat decided, as it was Sunday, to run into a bend of the river and tie up for the day.

That night the banks caved in so frequently that I was in danger of being entombed in my sneak-box; and I rejoiced when morning came and the dangerous quarters were left behind.

My flatboat companions made known to me a curious feature of river physics well known to the great floating population of the western streams.

If you start with a flat-boat or raft of timber from any point on the Ohio or Mississippi rivers at the moment a rise in the water takes place, and continue floating night and day without interruption, you will in a few days overrun the effects of the rise, or freshet, and get below it.

A little later you will discover, at some point a few hundred miles down-stream, that the river is just commencing to swell, as the result of the freshet upon which you originally started.

During Tuesday and Wednesday of January 11 and 12, I was at times with the flat, and at times miles away from it.

Near Skipwith Landing, Mississippi, we passed large and well-cultivated cotton-plantations, but the river country in its vicinity was almost a wilderness.

My sleep had been much broken by night-travelling, and about nine o'clock on Wednesday evening I fastened my boat to the flat, and determined to have two or three hours of refreshing slumber.

An hour's peaceful rest followed, and then a snorting, screeching stern-wheel steamer crossed the river with its tow of barges, and demoralized all my surroundings, driving me against the flat, and shooting water over the deck of my craft.

Only half awake, I cast off from the flat, and thought that I was rowing down-river as usual; but I had dropped back into my nest just for one moment, and was in the land of Nod.

I felt in my sleep that I was floating down the Mississippi.

I was conscious that I had left the flatboat, and that steamers, snags, and eddies must be looked out for, or disaster would come quickly upon me.

I knew I was asleep, and tried to rouse myself.

I seemed to be watching the moon, which shone with silver glory upon the glistening waters, and made the dark forests, rising wall-like on the banks, even darker by comparison.

Then I seemed to enter the fields of astronomy, moving through the atmosphere still pulling at my oars.

My mental vision stretched across the Atlantic, and enveloped the old astronomical observatory of the French city of Toulouse.

It was the hour of sunset, and the learned Director Petit was at his post carefully adjusting his telescope, eager with the hope of identifying an undiscovered meteorite, the presence of which had been suggested by certain disturbances among the celestial bodies.

The savant carefully pointed his instrument to the neighboring regions of the setting sun, when suddenly I saw him start, and heard him mutter, like a philosopher of old, "Eureka, I have found it!"

Only a ray of light had flashed across the field of his telescope as an asteroid shot into the gloam of the sun.

Its movements were so rapid, its disappearance so sudden, that it was impossible to obtain another glimpse of the unknown body.

The god of day had enveloped the satellite in curtains of powerful light, so that no eye but that of its Creator could gaze again that night upon the little stranger which had been seen for the first time by man.

The astronomer moved away from his instrument and the wonderful machinery that had guided it in its search for the asteroid, slowly muttering.

"The sun robbed me of a second sight of my discovery, yet only at this hour can I hope to get a glimpse of it.

The difficulties attending this observation are the tremendous velocity with which it travels, its very small mass, and the rapidity with which, at the hour of sunset, it passes into the shadow of the earth.

I will, however, calculate its orbit, and search for it again; for I have this evening seen what no human eye has ever beheld, I HAVE SEEN THE EARTH'S LITTLE MOON."

While I watched, entranced, the astronomer, aided by his assistants, labored over multitudes of figures hour after hour, day after day; and from these computations an orbit was constructed for the Little Moon.

Their work was finished; and as they left the observatory, a shadow, which had thrown its dark outlines here and there about the professor during his investigations, assumed the proportions of a man; and I saw for an instant the brilliant French writer, Jules Verne, while a voice in the musical language of France fell upon my ear: "Ah, Monsieur, it IS true, then, and we have a second moon, which must revolve round our planet once in three hours and twenty minutes, at a distance of only four thousand six hundred and fifty miles from our terrestrial abiding-place!"

Then the professor and his figures faded out of my vision; and I seemed to be observing a little moon revolving with lightning rapidity round the earth, while I felt that I had, in some way, been sucked into its orbit, and was whirling around with it.

Suddenly, with a keen sense of danger pervading my whole nervous system, I awoke.

Yes, it was a dream!

I was in my boat, gazing up into the serene heavens, where the larger moon was tranquilly following her orbit, while I was being whirled round in a strong eddy under a high bank of the river, with the giant trees frowning down upon me as though rebuking a careless boatman for being caught napping.

And where was the flat?

I

gazed across the wide river into the quiet atmosphere now full of the bright light of the moon,--but no boat could be seen; and from the wild forest alone came back an echo to my shouts of "Flatboat, ahoy!"

For hours I rowed in search of my compagnon de voyage.

As I hurried along the reaches of the river, every island cut-off, every tow-head, and every nigger-head, was inspected.

I even peered into the mouths of dark bayous, thinking the party might have tied up to await my arrival, as the larger and deeper craft floated faster than my little boat.

All search, however, proved fruitless.

No flat could be seen.

My endeavors to find my quondam friends had been so absorbing that things above my line of vision were not observed, when suddenly the bright moonlight revealed to my astonished eyes a lofty city apparently suspended in the heavens.

By the aid of a candle and my map I discovered that the city and fortifications of Vicksburgh were close at hand, and that it was four o'clock in the morning.

My first view of Vicksburgh was over a long, low point of land, across the base of which was excavated, during the investment of the city by United States troops in the late war, "General Grant's Cut-off."

By using this cut-off, light-draught gunboats could ascend or descend the river without passing near the batteries of the fortified city.

This point, or peninsula, which the Union forces held, is on the Louisiana shore, opposite Vicksburgh.

A year or two after I passed that interesting locality, a Natchez newspaper, in describing the change made in the channel of the Mississippi River, said that "St. Joseph and Rodney have been left inland; Vicksburgh is left on a lake; Delta will soon be washed away; a cut-off has been made at Grand Gulf, and by another season Port Gibson and Claiborne County will have no landing."

Floating quietly in my little boat, and gazing at the city upon the heights, I thought of the bloody scenes there enacted, and of the statement made that "three hundred tons of lead, mostly bullets, had been collected in and around the town since the close of the war."

This lead, it has been asserted, would make nine million six hundred thousand ounce-balls.

Of course, in this statement there is no mention of the lead buried deep in the earth, and that lost in the river.

Entering a great bend, the swift current swept me so rapidly past Vicksburgh that a few moments later I was among the islands and tow- heads of the river.

At noon the plantation of Mr. Jefferson Davis was passed.

It was situated twenty-five miles below Vicksburgh, and prior to February, 1867, was on a long peninsula with the estate of Colonel Joseph E. Davis and one belonging to Messrs. Quitman and Farrar.

Then came the overwhelming river, sweeping across a narrow neck of land, and transforming the cotton-plantations into an island territory.

In the old days of slavery, Colonel Joseph E. Davis, brother of the ex- president of the late Confederate States, had a body-servant named Ben Montgomery.

He was the manager of his master's estates while a slave, and was so industrious and honest in all his dealings, and so successful in business, that after the war he was able to purchase his master's plantation for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold.

While I lingered in the Davis cut-off to lunch, a boat-load of white men passed me on their way to the plantation of Jefferson Davis, which they said had also been purchased by Ben Montgomery of its former owner, who then resided in Memphis.

One of the men said: "Mr. Davis will convey the property to Ben Montgomery as soon as he makes one more payment, and Ben told me he was about ready to close the transaction."

Montgomery was described as being fairly educated, and possessing the presence and address of a gentleman.

His neighbors credited him with being "a right smart good nigger."

It is a singular fact that these large landed estates should have become the property of the former slave so soon after the war.

Ben Montgomery died recently, leaving an example to his colored brethren worthy of their imitation.

From Davis's Cut-off I followed Big Black Island Bend and Hard Times Bend, past the now silent batteries of Grand Gulf, down to the town of Rodney.

I went ashore near the old plantation of an ex-president (General Taylor) of the United States, being attracted by a lot of dry drift-wood which promised a blazing fire.

While cooking my rice and slowly developing an omelet, I calculated upon the chances of finding the lost flatboat.

It was now evident that she was behind, not in advance of me.

It was about four o'clock, and I determined to await her arrival.

At half-past six o'clock clouds had obscured the sky, and it was impossible to see across the water, but I continued to watch and listen for the flat.

The current was strongest on my side of the river, and I felt certain the boat would follow it and pass close to my camp.

Her lantern and blazing stove-pipe would reveal her presence.

Suddenly a man coughed within a few rods of the shore, and out of the gloom appeared the dark outlines of the fisherman's craft, but like a phantom ship, it instantly disappeared.

It was but the work of a moment to embark and follow the vanishing flat.

I soon overhauled it, and received a warm welcome from its occupants, who had supposed that after the steamer had driven me from them I had sought refuge in a creek to make up my lost hours of sleep.

We floated side by side all night, disturbed but once, and then by the powerful steamer Robert Lee, which unceremoniously threw about a pail of water over me, gratuitously washing my blankets.

The next day, January 13, we passed Natchez, Mississippi, about four o'clock A. M.

This city, founded by D'Iberville in 1700, is geographically divided into two parts.

"Natchez on the Hill" is situated on a bluff two hundred feet above the river, while "Natchez under the Hill " is at the base of the cliff, and from its levee vessels sail for foreign as well as for American ports.

Its inland and foreign trade is extensive, though it has a population of only ten or twelve thousand.

The aspect of the country was changing as we approached New Orleans.

Fine plantations, protected by levees, now lined the river-banks, while the forests of dense green, heavily draped with Spanish moss, threw dark shadows on the watery path.

We arrived at the mouth of the Red River about dark, and my companions were fortunate enough to find a steamer at the landing, the captain of which promised to take them in tow to their distant goal.

We parted like old friends; and as I rowed in darkness down the Mississippi I heard the shrill whistle of the steamer which was dragging my companions up the current of Red River into the high lands of Louisiana.

Up Red River, three miles from its mouth, a stream branches off to the south, and empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

This is the Atchafalaya Bayou.

At Plaquemine, about one hundred and thirty miles below Red River, and on the west bank of the Mississippi, another bayou conducts a portion of the water from the main stream into Grand River, which, with other western Louisiana watercourses, empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

There is a third western outlet from the parent stream at Donaldsonville, eighty-one miles above New Orleans, known as the Bayou La Fourche, which flows through one of the richest sugar-producing sections of the state.

Dotted here and there along the shores of this bayou are the picturesque homes of the planters, made more attractive by the semi-tropical vegetation, the clustering vines, blooming roses, and bright green turf than they could ever be from mere architectural beauty, while their continuous course along the shore gives the idea of a long and prosperous village.

The guide-books of the Mississippi describe the Bayou Manchac as an outlet to the Mississippi on the left, or east bank, below Baton Rouge, and the statement is repeatedly made that steamboats can go through this bayou into the Amite River, and down that river to Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico, leaving, by this route, the city of New Orleans to the west.

This is, however, far from the truth, as I shall presently show, for it had been my intention to descend the Bayou Manchac, and follow D'Iberville's ancient route to the sea.

I

soon found that the accomplishment of my plan was impossible, as the dry bottom of the bayou was FIFTEEN FEET ABOVE the water of the Mississippi.

Pursuing my solitary way, I rowed across the Mississippi, and skirted the shore in search of a camp where I could sleep until the moon arose, which would be soon after midnight.

During the afternoon I had crossed the southern boundary of the state of Mississippi, and now the river ran through the state of Louisiana all the way to the sea.

About nine o'clock I found a little bayou in the dark woods, and moored my boat to a snag which protruded its head above the still waters of the tarn.

The old trees that closely encircled my nocturnal quarters were fringed with the inevitable Spanish moss, and gave a most funereal aspect to the surroundings.

The mournful hootings of the owls added to the doleful and weird character of the place.

I was, however, too sleepy to waste much sentiment upon the gloomy walls of my apartment, and was soon lost to all sublunary things.

These dark pockets of the swamps, these earthly Hades, are famous resting-places for those who know the untenable nature of ghosts, and who have become the possessors of healthy nerves by avoiding the poisonous influences of coal-gas in furnace-heated houses, the vitiated air of crowded rooms, and other detrimental effects of a city life.

In such a camp the voyager need fear no intrusion upon his privacy, for the superstitions rife among men will prevent even Paul Pry from penetrating such recesses during the wee sma' hours.

Of course such a camp would be safe only during the winter months, as at other seasons the invidious foe, malaria, would inevitably mark for its victim the man who slept beneath such deadly shades.

At midnight the light of the moon illuminated my dark quarters, and I stole noiselessly out of the bayou into the river, rowing until sunrise, when the small port of Bayou Sara was passed.

It was soon left in the dim distance, and the little white boat floated ten miles down a nearly straight reach in the river to the frowning heights of Port Hudson, a place that figured prominently during the late war.

The country round Port Hudson is thickly settled by descendants of the old Acadians, who came down the great rivers from Canada in the early days of Louisiana's history.

Entering the mouth of the False River, on the west bank of the Mississippi, the traveller will penetrate the heart of an old and interesting Acadian settlement.

If his mind be full of poetic fancies, and his eyes in search of Gabriels and Evangelines as he travels along this part of the Mississippi, his ears will be startled by the unmistakable Yankee names that are given him as representing the proprietors of the various estates he passes.

Here and there the old French names appear; but in almost every such instance its possessor is a bachelor, and with him its musical accents will die away.

Searching into the cause of this patent fact, I discovered that the creole women, descendants of the old Acadians, appreciated the sterling qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race, and found in them their ideals, leaving in a state of single blessedness the more indolent, and perhaps less persuasive, creole gentlemen.

The results of these marriages are the gradual extinction of old family names; and in the not very far future the romance connected with these people will be a thing of the past, and the traveller, instead of thinking-- "This is the little village famed of yore, with meadows rich in flocks, and plenteous grain, whose peasants knelt beside each vine-clad door, As the sweet Angelus rose over the plain," will be introduced to Mrs. Hezekiah Skinner, and partake of her baked beans.

My informant in these matters was an educated creole gentleman, and I must have the honesty to give his remarks in regard to these persistent "Yankees," who, he said, "were always successful with the fair maidens, but invariably selected those who owned fine plantations, having in love, as well as in war, an eye to the main chance."

About the middle of the afternoon I ran the sneak-box on to the sloping levee of Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana; and, locking the hatch, went to the post-office for letters, and to the stores for provisions.

Returning to the levee, I found a good-natured crowd had taken possession of my boat, and at once availed myself of the local information in regard to the chances of a passage through Bayou Manchac, which was only fifteen miles below the town.

Each told a different story.

One gentleman said, "You will have to get four niggers to lift your boat over the levee of Mr. Walker's plantation, and put it into Bayou Manchac, which is about one hundred yards from the banks of the Mississippi.

Its mouth was filled up a long time ago, but when once in the bayou you can float down to the Amite River, and so on to the Gulf."

Another voice contradicted this statement, exclaiming, "Why, the bayou is dried up for a distance of at least eight miles from its head."

At this point a well-dressed gentleman advanced, and quietly said: "I live on the Bayou Manchac, and can assure you that after you have hauled your boat through the Woodstock Plantation of the Walker family, you will find water enough in the bayou to float down upon to the Amite River."

The crowd now became fully alive to the discussion of the geography of their locality.

Each man who favored me with an opinion on the Manchac question contradicted his neighbor; which was only a renewal of old experiences, for I always found LOCAL knowledge of geography and distances of little value.

As the debate ran high, I thought of D'Iberville, who had thoroughly explored the short bayou several generations before, and who might now have enlightened these people in regard to a stream that ran through their own lands.

D'Iberville was, however, born in Canada, and probably had more time to look into such matters, or he would not have travelled several thousand miles to explore Louisiana.

I thanked the company for their interest in the discussion, which, like the questions before a debating society, had ended only in opinions.

I promised to let them know the truth of the matter if I visited Baton Rouge again, and pushing out into the current, pulled towards Woodstock Plantation, where I arrived soon after dark; but fearing to land on account of the dogs, whose reception of a stranger in the dark was, to say the least, unceremonious, I tied up to a high bank, and "turned in" for the night.