LITMIR.BIZ

      PART II.

      VI.

       Table of Contents

      The Mississippi—The Whale—Description of tow-boats—A package—A threatened storm—A beautiful brigantine—Physiognomy of ships—Richly furnished cabin—An obliging Captain—Desert the ship—Getting under weigh—A chain of captives—Towing—New- Orleans—A mystery to be unraveled.

      Upon the mighty bosom of the "Father of Waters", our gallant ship now proudly floats. The Mississippi! that noble river, whose magnificent windings I have traced with my finger upon the map in my school-boy days, wishing, with all the adventurous longing of a boy, that I might, like the good fathers Marquette and Hennepin, leap into an Indian's birch canoe, and launching from its source among the snows and untrodden wilds of the far north, float pleasantly away under every climate, down to the cis-Atlantic Mediterranean; where, bursting from its confined limits, it proudly shoots into that tideless sea through numerous passages, like radii from one common centre. My wishes are now, in a measure, about to be realized. The low, flat, and interminable marshes, through the heart of which we are rapidly advancing—the ocean-like horizon, unrelieved by the slightest prominence—the sullen, turbid waves around us, which yield but slowly and heavily to the irresistible power of steam—all familiar characteristics of this river—would alone assure me that I am on the Mississippi. My last letter left us in the immediate expectation of being taken in tow by the "Whale," then coming rapidly down the South-West passage, in obedience to the hundred signals flying at the "fore" of as many vessels on every side of us. In a few minutes, snorting and dashing over the long ground-swell, and flinging a cloud of foam from her bows, she ran alongside of us, and sent her boat on board. While the little skiff was leaping from wave to wave to our ship, we had time to observe more attentively than when in motion, the singular appearance of this unique class of steamboats.

      Her engine is of uncommon power, placed nearer the centre of the hull than in boats of the usual construction; her cabin is small, elevated, and placed near the engine in the centre of the boat. With the exception of the engine and cabin, she is "flush" from stem to stern; one quarter of her length abaft the cabin, and the same portion forward of the boilers being a broad platform, which extends quite around the boat, forming a very spacious guard on either side.

      The after part of this guard is latticed for the purpose of carrying off the water with facility when thrown back from the wheels. They seldom or never take passengers up to the city. The usual price for towing is, I think, about one dollar per ton. Hence the expense is very great for vessels of large burthen; and rather than incur it, many ships, after being towed over the bar, which, at this season, cannot be crossed otherwise, work their own way up to town, which, with a fair wind, may be effected in twenty-four hours, the distance being but one hundred and five miles; but it not unfrequently takes them ten or fifteen days. Our captain informs me that he once lay thirty-six days in the river before he could reach New-Orleans—but fortunately, owing to the state of the market, on his arrival, he realized two hundred per cent. more on his cargo than he would have done had he arrived a month earlier.

      The jolly-boat from the steamer was now along side, and the officer in the stern sheets tossed a small package on our quarter-deck; and then, with the velocity of an uncaged bird, his little green cockle-shell darted away from us like a dolphin. The next moment he stood upon the low deck of the steamer.

      "Go ahead!" loudly was borne over the water, and with a plunge and a struggle, away she dashed from us with her loud, regular boom, boom, boom! throwing the spray around her head, like the huge gambolling monster from which she derives her name. With her went our hopes of speedy deliverance from our present durance. With faces whose complicated, whimsically-woful expression Lavater himself could not have analyzed, and as though moved by one spirit, we turned simultaneously toward the captain, who leaned against the capstan, reading one of the letters from the package just received. There was a cloud upon his brow which portended no good to our hopes, and which, by a sympathetic feeling, was attracted to, and heavily settled upon our own. We turned simultaneously to the tow-boat: she was rapidly receding in the distance. We turned again to watch our probable fate in the captain's face. It spoke as plainly as face could speak, "gentlemen, no tow-boat." We gazed upon each other like school-boys hatching a conspiracy. Mutual glances of chagrin and dissatisfaction were bandied about the decks. After so long a passage, with our port almost in sight, and our voyage nearly ended, to be compelled to remain longer in our close prison, and creep like a

      "Wounded snake, dragging its slow length along,"

      winding, day after day, through the sinuosities of this sluggish Mississippi, was enough to make us ship-wearied wretches verily,

      "To weep our spirits from our eyes."

      It was a consummation we had never wished. There was evidently a rebellion in embryo. The storm was rapidly gathering, and the thunders had already begun "to utter their voices." The whole scene was infinitely amusing. There could not have been more feeling exhibited, had an order come down for the ship to ride a Gibraltar quarantine.

      The captain, having quietly finished the perusal of his letters, now changed at once the complexion of affairs.

      "I have just received advices, gentlemen, from my consignees in the city, that the market will be more favourable for my cargo fifteen days hence, than now; therefore, as I have so much leisure before me, I shall decline taking the tow-boat, and sail up to New-Orleans. I will, however, send my boat aboard the brig off our starboard quarter, which will take steam, and try to engage passage for those who wish to leave the ship."

There was no alternative, and we cheerfully sacrificed our individual wishes to the interests of Captain Callighan, whose urbanity, kindness and gentlemanly deportment, during the whole passage out, had not only contributed to our comfort and happiness, but won for him our cordial esteem and good feelings.2

      In a few minutes one of our quarter-boats was alongside, bobbing up and down on the short seas, with the buoyancy of a cork-float. The first officer, myself, and another passenger, leaped into her; and a few dozen long and nervous strokes from the muscular arms of our men, soon ran us aboard the brig, whose anchor was already "apeak," in readiness for the Whale. As we approached her, I was struck with her admirable symmetry and fine proportions—she was a perfect model of naval architecture. Though rather long for her breadth of beam, the sharp construction of her bows, and the easy, elliptical curve of her sides, gave her a peculiarly light and graceful appearance, which, united with her taunt, slightly raking taper masts, and the precision of her rigging, presented to our view a nautical ensemble, surpassing in elegance any thing of the kind I had ever before beheld.

      We were politely received at the gangway by the captain, a gentlemanly, sailor-like looking young man, with whom, after introducing ourselves, we descended into the cabin. I had time, however, to notice that the interior of this very handsome vessel corresponded with the exterior. The capstan, the quarter-rail stanchions, the edge of the companion-way, and the taffrail, were all ornamented and strengthened with massive brass plates, polished like a mirror. The binnacle case was of ebony, enriched with inlaying and carved work. A dazzling array of steel-headed boarding pikes formed a glittering crescent half around the main-mast. Her decks evinced the free use of the "holy-stone," and in snowy whiteness, would have put to the blush the unsoiled floors of the most fastidious Yankee housewife. Her rigging was not hung on pins, but run and coiled "man-o'-war fashion," upon her decks. Her long boat, amidships, was rather an ornament than an excrescence, as in most merchantmen. Forward, the "men" were gathered around the windlass, which was abaft the foremast, all neatly

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