The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0138/01383.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 6KB | 120 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01383}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Life On The Mississippi
Chapter XXIII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{river
place
new
st
town

}
$Date{1917}
$Log{}
Title:       Life On The Mississippi
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1917

Chapter XXIII

Travelling Incognito

     My idea was to tarry awhile in every town between St. Louis and New
Orleans.  To do this, it would be necessary to go from place to place by the
short packet lines.  It was an easy plan to make, and would have been an easy
one to follow, twenty years ago - but not now.  There are wide intervals
between boats, these days.

     I wanted to begin with the interesting old French settlements of St.
Genevieve and Kaskaskia, sixty miles below St. Louis.  There was only one boat
advertised for that section - a Grand Tower packet.  Still, one boat was
enough; so we went down to look at her.  She was a venerable rack- heap, and a
fraud to boot; for she was playing herself for personal property, whereas the
good honest dirt was so thickly caked all over her that she was righteously
taxable as real estate.  There are places in New England where her
hurricane-deck would be worth a hundred and fifty dollars an acre.  The soil
on her forecastle was quite good - the new crop of wheat was already springing
from the cracks in protected places. The companionway was of a dry sandy
character, and would have been well suited for grapes, with a southern
exposure and a little subsoiling.  The soil of the boiler-deck was thin and
rocky, but good enough for grazing purposes.  A colored boy was on watch here
- nobody else visible.  We gathered from him that this calm craft would go as
advertised, "if she got her trip"; if she didn't get it, she would wait for
it.

     "Has she got any of her trip?"

     "Bless you, no, boss!  She ain't unloadened, yit.  She only come in dis
mawnin'."

     He was uncertain as to when she might get her trip, but thought it might
be to-morrow or maybe next day.  This would not answer at all; so we had to
give up the novelty of sailing down the river on a farm.  We had one more
arrow in our quiver: a Vicksburg packet, the Gold Dust, was to leave at 5 p.m.
We took passage in her for Memphis, and gave up the idea of stopping off here
and there, as being impracticable.  She was neat, clean, and comfortable.  We
camped on the boiler-deck, and bought some cheap literature to kill time with.
The vender was a venerable Irishman with a benevolent face and a tongue that
worked easily in the socket, and from him we learned that he had lived in St.
Louis thirty- four years and had never been across the river during that
period.  Then he wandered into a very flowing lecture, filled with classic
names and allusions, which was quite wonderful for fluency until the fact
became rather apparent that this was not the first time, nor perhaps the
fiftieth, that the speech had been delivered.  He was a good deal of a
character, and much better company than the sappy literature he was selling.
A random remark, connecting Irishmen and beer, brought this nugget of
information out of him:

     "They don't drink it, sir.  They can't drink it, sir.  Give an Irishman
lager for a month, and he's a dead man.  An Irishman is lined with copper, and
the beer corrodes it.  But whisky polishes the copper and is the saving of
him, sir."

     At eight o'clock, promptly, we backed out and - crossed the river. As we
crept toward the shore, in the thick darkness, a blinding glory of white
electric light burst suddenly from our forecastle, and lit up the water and
the warehouses as with a noonday glare.  Another big change, this - no more
flickering, smoky, pitch-dripping, ineffectual torch- baskets, now: their day
is past.  Next, instead of calling out a score of hands to man the stage, a
couple of men and a hatful of steam lowered it from the derrick where it was
suspended, launched it, deposited it in just the right spot, and the whole
thing was over and done with before a mate in the olden time could have got
his profanity-mill adjusted to begin the preparatory services.  Why this new
and simple method of handling the stages was not thought of when the first
steamboat was built is a mystery which helps one to realize what a dull-witted
slug the average human being is.

     We finally got away at two in the morning, and when I turned out at six
we were rounding to at a rocky point where there was an old stone warehouse -
at any rate, the ruins of it; two or three decayed dwelling- houses were near
by in the shelter of the leafy hills, but there were no evidences of human or
other animal life to be seen.  I wondered if I had forgotten the river, for I
had no recollection whatever of this place; the shape of the river, too, was
unfamiliar; there was nothing in sight anywhere that I could remember ever
having seen before.  I was surprised, disappointed, and annoyed.

     We put ashore a well-dressed lady and gentleman, and two well- dressed
ladylike young girls, together with sundry Russia-leather bags. A strange
place for such folk!  No carriage was waiting.  The party moved off as if they
had not expected any, and struck down a winding country road afoot.

     But the mystery was explained when we got under way again, for these
people were evidently bound for a large town which lay shut in behind a
tow-head (i.e., new island) a couple of miles below this landing.  I couldn't
remember that town; I couldn't place it, couldn't call its name. So I lost
part of my temper.  I suspected that it might be St. Genevieve - and so it
proved to be.  Observe what this eccentric river had been about: it had built
up this huge, useless tow-head directly in front of this town, cut off its
river communications, fenced it away completely, and made a "country" town of
it.  It is a fine old place, too, and deserved a better fate.  It was settled
by the French, and is a relic of a time when one could travel from the mouths
of the Mississippi to Quebec and be on French territory and under French rule
all the way.

     Presently I ascended to the hurricane-deck and cast a longing glance
toward the pilot-house.